oday, we are going from dating on occasion to a marriage.”
Displaying his trademark skill at artful turns of
phrase, the Reverend Al Sharpton spoke
to the dramatic significance of a June 5
press conference at the Stonewall Inn
that brought together leaders of dozens
of local and national LGBT groups and
the organizers of a June 17 Manhattan
march to protest the NYPD’s stop and
frisk policies that affect people of color in
starkly disproportionate numbers.
The End Stop and Frisk Silent March
Against Racial Profiling is planned for
Father’s Day, and its lead organizers
include Sharpton’s National Action Network, the NAACP, Local 1199 of the
Service Employees International Union
(SEIU), the United Federation of Teachers,
and the New York Civil Liberties Union.
Last year, the NYPD made nearly
685,000 stop-and-frisks, up from less
than 100,000 in 2002. Police department
data demonstrate the sharp racial and

Chris Bilal, flanked by Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, Joo-Hyun Kang of Communities United for Police Reform, Lambda
Legal’s Kevin Cathcart, Ben Jealous of the NAACP, HRC’s Marty Rouse, and the Reverend Al Sharpton, at the
Stonewall Inn on June 5.

ethnic disparities in the use of the tactic
–– with 53 percent of them involving African Americans and 34 percent, Latinos.
On June 5, most of the big names in
LGBT advocacy –– the Human Rights
Campaign (HRC), the National Gay and
Lesbian Task Force, the Empire State
Pride Agenda, the New York City Anti-Violence Project (AVP), Lambda Legal, the

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Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the Gay and
Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation,
the Family Equality Council, the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund,
Marriage Equality USA, the National
Black Justice Coalition, and Congregation Beit Simchat Torah (CBST) among
them –– stepped up in solidarity.
Terming the police’s stop and frisk policy “a process that is simply broken and
that, if not fixed, will only cause further
division,” City Council Speaker Christine
Quinn, an out lesbian Chelsea Democrat
expected to seek the mayoralty next year,
said, “The key to our safety as a city is
a positive connection between the police
and the community.”
The nearly 700,000 stops, she noted,
are not distributed evenly across the
city’s neighborhoods or eight million residents but rather “concentrated in particular subsets of New Yorkers.”
The show of LGBT support for the
June 17 march was organized by Stuart Appelbaum, the out gay president of
the Retail, Wholesale and Department
Store Union, who said that the beginning of Pride Month was an appropriate
time to “join” the civil rights and LGBT
rights movements. The press conference
came just weeks after the NAACP went
on record in support of marriage equality
and the nation’s first African-American
chief executive became the first president
to do the same while in office.
The NAACP’s national president, Ben
Jealous, was on hand for the event. It
was less than two years ago when Jealous became the first NAACP president to
appear at New York’s LGBT Community
Center, and, while saying that “our movements have been coming closer together
for some time,” he mentioned Bayard Rustin as an example of LGBT involvement
throughout the history of the AfricanAmerican fight for civil rights. Rustin, an
out gay man who was arrested on lewd-

ness charges in California and stopped
and frisked in Harlem, was the lead organizer of the 1963 March on Washington
where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.
Sharon Stapel, AVP’s executive
director and one of two co-chairs of
the march’s LGBT table convened by
Appelbaum, focusing on the ways in
which stop and frisk affects people of
color communities and LGBT people,
termed much of the practice “unacceptable state-sanctioned violence” that
represents “institutionalized racism,
homophobia, and transphobia.”
A report just issued by the National
Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs
(NCAVP), made up of 16 organizations
nationwide including the AVP, found that
32 percent of those who reported antiLGBT violence and harassment cited police
misconduct as part of their experience. Of
that group, slightly more than half alleged
unjustified arrest, while about a quarter
said they had been subjected to excessive
force, 17 percent to entrapment, and five
percent to police raids.
Some transgender NCAVP clients said
they had been profiled as sex workers
and falsely arrested. Other LGBT clients
complaining of police misconduct said
they were arrested for public shows of
affection or public sex either falsely or
through selective enforcement. Nearly
four in ten who cited police misconduct
were survivors of violence who were
themselves the ones arrested.
Among all offenders cited in the
NCAVP report, police officers and other
law enforcement agents made up more
than nine percent of the total.
The report also found that transgender
people of color experienced police violence
at a rate more than two times greater than
the LGBT community as a whole.
Chris Bilal, a young African-American
gay man who works with Streetwise &
Safe, a group that engages youth of color
to help them navigate their encounters
with police on the street, talked about
having been stopped and frisked several
times, saying his experiences have too
often been “missing from the barbershop
narrative” about the issue. When he and
two gay friends were dancing to Beyoncé
music in a park, he said, that apparently
convinced police it gave them “probable
cause to suspect we were engaged in
unlawful sexual conduct.”
The risk of stop and frisk, he added,
discourages many young gay men of
color from carrying condoms for fear
they will be profiled as sex workers.
George Gresham, the African-American president of SEIU 1199, said that

harun Ravi,
a 20-year -old
former Rutgers Univer sity student,
convicted on March 16 in a
2010 webcam spying case
targeting his gay roommate,
Tyler Clementi, began serving his 30-day jail sentence
on May 31.
Ravi appeared in Superior Court in New Brunswick early in the mor ning
the day before to tell Judge
Glenn Berman that, despite
a pending appeal of his conviction, he was willing to
begin his sentence, which
also includes 300 hours of
community service, counseling on what the judge
termed “cyberbullying” and
“alternative lifestyles,” three
years of probation, and a
$10,000 fine. Ravi’s attor ney, Joseph Benedict, said
his client would begin his
community service after his
jail time and initiate installment payments on his
fine on August 1. Ravi will
spend his time in the Mid-

dlesex County jail — not in
a state prison — and could
be released after 20 days.
Steven Altman, another
of Ravi’s attorneys, released
a s t a t e me n t on the eve of
the May 30 hearing offering
the young man’s first for mal apology for the spying
events, which were followed
several days later by the suicide of Clementi, an 18-yearold Rutgers freshman who
jumped to his death from the
George Washington Bridge.
“My behavior and actions,
which at no time were motivated by hate, bigotry, prejudice, or desire to hurt, humiliate, or embarrass anyone,
were nonetheless the wrong
choices and decisions,” the
statement read. “I apologize
to everyone affected by those
choices.” Ravi ter med his
actions “thoughtless, insensitive, immature, stupid, and
childish choices.”
The jail time, ordered in a
sentencing hearing on May
21, was based on concurrent
30-day sentences for six of
the 24 counts on which Ravi
was convicted. He was found
guilty of multiple counts

of invasion of privacy, bias
intimidation, witness and evidence tampering, and evasion
of apprehension.
Immediately after the sentence was handed down,
the Middlesex County prosecutor announced plans
to appeal Ravi’s sentence,
arguing that it was “insuffi ci ent,” so the d efend ant
could have deferred his jail
time until the appeal was
resolved. “It’s the only way I
can get on with my life,” Ravi
said in his written statement, explaining his decision to serve his time now.
Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce J. Kaplan, in a May
21 statement, said that while
his office “did not request the
maximum period of incar ceration for Dharun Ravi, it
was expected that his conviction on multiple offenses of
invading the privacy of two
victims on two separate occasions, four counts of bias
intimidation against Tyler
Clementi, and the coverup of
those crimes, would warrant
more than a 30-day jail term.
The imposition of this term
is insufficient under the sen-

Tyler Clementi, a highly regarded violin player, was described as a shy college freshman at the
time of his suicide.

tencing laws of this state, the
facts that were determined
by a jury, and long-standing
appellate precedent. Consequently, this office will appeal
the sentence.”
At the May 30 hearing,
first assistant prosecu-

tor Julia McClure said her
office believes the defendant
deserves five years in prison.
According to nj.com, Ber man said, “I’ll stand on belief
that his conduct was wrong.

s debates raged in
the gay blogosphere
over the sentence that
Dharun Ravi should
receive after being
convicted on 24 charges including
invasion of privacy, witness and evidence tampering, bias intimidation,
and hindering prosecution, a few
queer voices seeking little or no jail
time for Ravi emerged in the mainstream press.
“I was in favor of no jail time in this
case, but I think 30 days is well within the boundaries of what a fair and
appropriate sentence is in this case,”
said Richard Kim, executive editor at
The Nation, a progressive magazine.
Ravi will serve 30 days in jail
beginning on May 31, pay a $10,000
fine plus additional costs, complete

300 hours of community service,
undergo counseling, and stay on
probation for three years. He first
apologized for his actions on May 29.
The defense and prosecution have
said they will appeal.
Ravi faced more than 30 counts
in his New Jersey trial, and, to be
sure, many in the LGBT community sought a far harsher sentence.
A great deal of anger was directed
at the 20-year -old Ravi because
after he briefly spied on Tyler Clementi, his gay college roommate,
and another man having sex, tweeted about having done so, and then
attempted to do so a second time,
Clementi, 18, took his own life
by jumping off the George Washington Bridge. Clementi’s 2010 death
followed a string of suicides by
gay kids who had been bullied by
their peers.

At Ravi’s May 21 sentencing hear ing, his attorney, Steve Altman, said
his client had been “demonized by the
gay community.”
Ravi was
not charged
w i t h
a n y
crime related
to Clementi’s
d e a t h . I n
interviews with
t h e N e w Yo r k
T imes and
ABC’s “20/ 20,”
jurors said the
suicide played
no part in their deliberations.
While the debate within the queer
community over the trial and sentence occurred almost exclusively
on gay blogs, it was nevertheless
rancorous and sharply divided.
The gay voices that the mainstream

press quoted as urging leniency
heard little negative feedback from
the broader community.
Aaron Hicklin, the editor of Out

In interviews with the New York
Times and ABC’s “20/ 20,”
jurors said the suicide played no
part in their deliberations.
magazine, wrote an editorial and
spoke out in the press urging that
Ravi be set free after the magazine
ran a letter and photo essay by

homas K. Duane, the out gay Chelsea Democrat first elected to the
New York State Senate in 1998, has
announced he will not seek reelection this November.
“New York City is my home,” Duane said at a June
4 press conference, adding, “Yesterday, I went to
see ‘Porgy and Bess’… I want to have more of those
moments.” Other than saying he hopes to stay
involved in “helping people” and “saving the world,”
he was not specific about his plans come January 1.
Duane, who is 57, was elected to the Senate after
serving seven years on the New York City Council,
where he held the seat now occupied by Speaker
Christine Quinn, an out lesbian who once served as
his chief of staff. He made clear that his candidate
to succeed him is Brad Hoylman, the chairman of
Community Board 2 in the West Village, who has
jumped into the race.
“Brad is one of my closest friends,” he said. “We
talked last night. I would be proud to be represented
by Brad Hoylman.”
Hoylman, who had been expected to seek the
City Council seat held by Quinn, who will be termlimited next year, told Gay City News, “Nothing
would make me prouder than to continue Senator
Tom Duane’s legacy of being a champion for our
community and those who normally don’t have a
voice in the halls of government. His 14-year legacy
is without parallel. I hope to follow in Tom’s progressive, activist footsteps and am humbled by his
comments today. I would be extremely honored to
have Tom’s support for the State Senate.”
Hoylman’s effort was also boosted by a June 4
endorsement from East Side Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney.
During Duane’s time in the Senate, the state
enacted hate crimes legislation that included protections for gay and lesbian New Yorkers, adopted a
gay rights law, and put in place school anti-bullying
protections based on categories including sexual
orientation and gender identity and expression — all
measures on which he served as lead sponsor.
The most significant advance for LGBT rights
during Duane’s time in the Senate came in June
2011 when New York enacted a marriage equality
law with the strong support of Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo.
In addition to those four measures, Duane was
also the long-time sponsor of the Gender Expression
Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), a transgender
civil rights measure passed five times in the Assembly but consistently stalled in the Senate. Over the
past year, Duane handed off the lead sponsorship
of that measure to his Democratic Senate colleague
Daniel Squadron, who represents portions of Lower
Manhattan and Brownstone Brooklyn.
With a mix of frustration and determination,
Duane said he would press this year to secure
enactment of a rent cap — pegged at 30 percent of
their income — for clients of the HIV/ AIDS Ser vices Administration who live in privately-owned
housing, protection already afforded to HASA clients in public and congregate care housing. Dating
back to at least the final years of the Pataki administration, Duane, Assemblywoman Deborah Glick,

and AIDS advocates, including Voices of Community Activists & Leaders (VOCAL), have pushed to end
an anomaly in state law that forces HASA clients
without rental cap protection to pay up to 70 percent of their income on housing, leaving them with
less than $15 per day for their other expenses.
The measure, passed twice by the Senate, was
vetoed in 2010 by then Governor David Paterson. “I
will never understand why Governor Paterson vetoed
the bill,” Duane said. “It was not the Governor Paterson I thought I knew.”
The for mer gover nor was under significant
pressure from the Bloomberg administration,
which produced an analysis saying the rent cap
law would cost the city and the state $15 million
per year each. An analysis by the City Council
countered that extending the rent cap would cost
about $4 million in start-up costs, but would be
no worse than revenue-neutral in later years, an
objective that Paterson, burdened by a huge budget deficit, said he required.
Asked if he had the support of Governor Andrew
Cuomo on the measure, Duane noted that it first
needed to be approved by the Senate and Assembly. “I’ll need everyone’s help to make sure it gets
signed,” he said.
A spokesman for the governor did not immediately
respond to a request for comment on the legislation.
In 1994, after only three years on the Council,
Duane challenged West Side Congressman Jerry
Nadler, who was finishing up his first term, in the
Democratic primary. Nadler had been appointed by
party leaders to run as the Democratic candidate
in 1992 when incumbent Democrat Ted Weiss died
suddenly during the fall election campaign, so he
was considered potentially vulnerable. In a district
that included sections of Brooklyn as well as Manhattan, however, Nadler dispatched Duane by a
roughly two-to-one margin.
While on the Council, Duane fought hard to
keep the administration of Mayor Rudy Giuliani
accountable for the performance of HASA, then
known as the Division of AIDS Services (DAS). The
former mayor quickly abandoned plans early in
his first administration to dismantle DAS as a onestop agency making government support services
available to people living with the virus at a time
when the death toll from AIDS continued to surge
in the city. Duane joined with activists in a massive
march on City Hall to push back on the new mayor’s plans, and he succeeded in having the agency
enshrined in law.
Duane also worked to enact the state’s first
domestic partnership law, but the contentious
relationship between him and Giuliani frustrated his efforts. Shortly after the ex-mayor’s 1997
reelection race — in which the Empire State Pride
Agenda remained neutral, rather than endorse his
opponent, Manhattan Borough President Ruth
Messinger, a vocal gay rights supporter — the
mayor pushed through his own domestic partnership law, similar to Duane’s, but gave the gay
councilman no credit.
Besides Hoylman, potential candidates for
Duane’s seat that have been mentioned include
Corey Johnson, the out gay chairman of Chelsea’s Community Board 4, Yetta Kurland, a lesbian who ran a strong challenge against Quinn in

Senator Tom Duane announcing his retirement at a June 4 press conference.

2009, East Side Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh,
and West Side City Councilwoman Gail Brewer.
Kurland, Kavanagh, and Brewer did not respond
to requests for comment.
In a statement praising Duane, Johnson, noting that he too has been considering a run for the
Quinn seat next year, said, “I will be weighing
this decision very carefully in the coming days,
and will make an announcement in due course.
Right now, however, I ask that we lay the question aside and instead focus on honoring a true
leader and pioneer, Senator Tom Duane.”
Kurland has been expected to run for the Quinn
Council seat next year, as well.
A spokesman for Assemblywoman Deborah Glick,
an out lesbian who is a 22-year Albany veteran,
knocked down speculation in the New York Times
that she would jump into the State Senate race.
The Democratic primary for Duane’s seat is September 13, and petitioning for primary begins this week.

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he 24th annual
Lambda Literary
Awards ceremony, held June
4 at Midtown’s
CUNY Graduate Center on Fifth
Avenue, easily accomplished
its mission of being the third,
final, and most glamorous of
New York’s spring trifecta of
gay literary events. Bestowed
by the Lambda Literary Foundation, the awards, nicknamed
the Lammies, followed March’s
Rainbow Book Fair and April’s
Publishing Triangle Awards.
Always timed in conjunction with Book Expo America,
North America’s largest such
conference, this year’s edition
of the Lammies was a particularly glitzy affair, with awardees
and presenters that included
bold-faced names such as writer Armistead Maupin, Oscarwinning actress Olympia Dukakis, lesbian feminist writer and
activist Kate Millett, film actress
Ally Sheedy, Broadway and film
actor Anthony Rapp, playwright,
screenwriter, and actor Charles
Busch, TV host Ted Allen, and
New York Times op-ed columnist Frank Bruni.
“This year we sold out of tickets for the event,” said Lambda
executive director Tony Valenzuela. “The first time this has
ever happened.”
More than 400 people
attended and participated, with
awards given in 24 categories,
some sub-divided by gender.
Comedian Kate Clinton
served as emcee, bringing her
sharp and often biting sense
of humor to the auditorium,

Dr. Eleanor Pam bestowed the Pioneer Award on Kate Millett.

with jokes touching on topics
ranging from abortion to fellatio and politics, including a
riff on New York Mayor Michael
Bloomberg’s recent proposal
to ban the sale of jumbo sodas.
Clinton, who felt loneliness as
a youth in upstate New York,
knowing nobody else who was
LGBT, also offered serious commentary, saying. “LGBT writing saved my life.” She added,
“Audre Lorde saved my life.”
Maupin was the recipient
of one of the Lambda Liter ary Foundation’s 2012 Pioneer

FRISK, from p.4

a common term among youth in many
neighborhoods is “stop and frisk virgin,” used to describe that rare individual who has not yet been targeted
by police.
Robert Pinter, who was falsely arrested
in 2008 on prostitution charges while
leaving a Manhattan video store for a consensual sexual encounter suggested by a
much younger undercover police officer,
spoke about his ongoing activism with a
group he founded, Campaign to Stop the
False Arrests. Pinter’s was one of at least
30 such arrests in 2008 in six Manhattan

Awards. He was introduced by
Dukakis, who said that of all
the roles she has played as an
actress, none had more impact
on her than that of Mrs. Madrigal, the landlady in Maupin’s
“Tales of the City.” From Mrs.
Madrigal, she said, she learned
that “the most important thing
for me was to survive myself.”
In receiving the award,
Maupin acknowledged gay
writers who came before him,
in particular Christopher Isherwood, the author of “The Berlin
Stories,” which was the basis

video stores identified by Gay City News.
Law enforcement used the prostitution
arrests as evidence in civil lawsuits aimed
at closing down the video establishments.
Both Marty Rouse, HRC’s national
field director, and CBST’s Rabbi Sharon
Kleinbaum took note of recent revelations that the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage (NOM) secretly circulated memos highlighting the group’s
aim of derailing progress on marriage
equality by driving a wedge between the
African-American and LGBT communities, two of the Democratic Party’s most
loyal constituencies.
“We are all connected to each other,”

for the stage and screen hits
“Cabaret.” Thanking younger
writers in the room who had
spoken of his impact on them,
Maupin said, “We all have
someone who is further along
than us, someone who reaches
across the ages.” He added, “We
are all committed to each other.
We can pass it on, and take it
from our elders.”
Rahul Mehta, author of
“Quarantine,” which won the
Gay Debut Fiction award, was
among those paying tribute to
Maupin. Accepting his award,
Mehta said he was honored “to
be in a room with Armistead
Maupin and all the other great
writers,” adding that LGBT
“books told me I was not alone
in the world.”
The other 2012 Pioneer
Award went to Millet, a towering feminist icon, an early leader
of the National Organization for
Women (NOW), and the author
of “Sexual Politics,” originally her
Ph.D. dissertation for Columbia
University. At a time when the
feminist movement was beset by
anxiety that it would dismissed
as a push from man-hating lesbians, Millet, in 1970, was outed
by Time magazine, something
that made her a lightning rod
for critics of women’s new-found
assertiveness.
Though frail and requiring
assistance in reaching the stage,
Millet insisted on standing during her humor-laced speech,
at first apologizing for its informality, saying, “I wrote this in
a taxicab.” She said she was
“impressed to be in the company of so many stars.” Recalling
the difficulties of being an out
lesbian feminist activist more

Kleinbaum said. “We are all multiple
identities at once. No one has the right to
ask us to stand separate and apart.”
Stirring words about coalition politics,
however, could not completely mask the
potential discomfort some LGBT leaders
may have felt taking such direct aim at
the conduct of a police force so strongly
defended by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a
highly visible advocate in the successful
push for marriage equality in New York.
Rouse declined to respond to a Village
Voice question about HRC honoring the
mayor last year with its National Ally for
Equality Award, saying he was on hand
to support the June 17 event.

than 40 years ago, she said that
today “we’re practically a nation.
We don’t have to hide anymore.”
Emotions were high among
the award recipients, many of
whom had spent years working on their projects, often with
little economic reward in small
niche categories within LGBT
publishing. A particularly
emotional response came from
Jim Provenzano, whose book
“Every Time I Think of You”
won in the Gay Romance category. He bounded out of his
seat, trotted to the stage, and
was red-faced and ebullient in
accepting his award.
The recognition of writers of
color was one of the evening’s
highlights. Farzana Doctor,
whose “Six Metres of Pavement”
won in the category of Lesbian
Fiction, said she was particularly proud to stand before the
audience as “a brown queer
writer tonight.”
Following her award, the evening’s final prize went to Colm
Tóibín for his “The Empty Family,” recognized in the category
of Gay Fiction. The Irish writer
was in Dublin and sent regrets
that he was unable to receive
the award in person.
The evening included a sidesplitting performance by Lypsinka, who wove famous telephone conversations from classic movies into a ‘50s-era song
performance. The after-party
was held at Slate, with Lady
Bunny stepping out as DJ.
A complete list of Lammy
winners can be found at lambdaliterary.org. The 2013 awards
ceremony will mark a quartercentury for this esteemed community celebration.

Through six years as Council speaker, Quinn has been faulted in some
progressive quarters for what was seen
as her surprisingly close and amicable
relationship with Bloomberg. On several occasions, Pinter told Gay City
News that he valued her work on the
video store arrest issue, but unlike
some elected officials who were visible
and vocal at street demonstrations, the
speaker seems to have exerted much of
her influence behind the scenes –– presumably with either the mayor or Police
Commissioner Ray Kelly, or both. The
June 5 event may signal a shift in her
public posture on policing issues.

9

| June 6, 2012

LEGAL

Ninth Circuit Declines to Re-Hear Prop 8
Next stop is Supreme Court, if it chooses to reconsider
decision striking down ‘08 referendum
BY ARTHUR LEONARD

T

he US Ninth Circuit Court
of Appeals has let stand
a three-judge ruling that
strikes down Califor nia’s
Proposition 8.
In a June 5 decision, the circuit
denied a bid to grant rehearing by a
larger panel of circuit judges — sitting en banc — of a February threejudge panel decision affirming Chief
District Judge Vaughan Walker's
2010 ruling that Proposition 8 is
an unconstitutional violation of the
Equal Protection Clause.

have a right to marry, based on both
the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the 14th Amendment. In a lengthy opinion based on
a very full trial record, Walker made
detailed findings of fact that refuted
all the justifications put forward for
denying same-sex couples the right
to marry.
While Walker found that the denial of a fundamental right or the
argument that sexual orientation
should be tr eated as a “suspect”
classification, like race, might subject the marriage ban to a heightened or strict level of judicial scrutiny — requiring a
compelling justification — he concluded that Prop
8 could not even
survive the least
demanding type
of review. AFER,
he found, demonstrated that there
was no rational
basis for bar ring gay and lesbian couples from
marrying. Existing Ninth Cir cuit
precedent has held that sexual orientation discrimination claims
should be subjected to such rational-basis review.
The Prop 8 Proponents succeeded
in getting Walker’s ruling stayed, but
the case hit a speed bump when the
Ninth Circuit asked the California
Supreme Court for an advisory opinion about whether the amendment’s
promoters had the right to intervene
after top elected officials in Califor nia declined to defend the referendum in federal court. After the state
high court responded affirmatively,
the three-judge panel then ruled on
the merits.
That panel's February 7 decision
af fir med Walker's conclusion that
Prop 8’s enactment was unconstitutional, but employed dif fer ent — and narrower — reasoning.
Unlike Walker, the Ninth Cir cuit
did not rule that same-sex couples
have a right to marry as a matter
of federal constitutional law. Refocusing the case, the court instead
concluded the state had violated
the 14th Amendment by voting to
rescind the right to marry after it
had been granted.
The court likened this case to

“This is a great step forward
toward the day when everyone will be able to
marry the person they love,” said David Boies.
The court, however, stayed it ruling for 90 days to give the Of ficial
Proponents of Prop 8 — who are
defending the 2008 voter initiative in the absence of the California
governor or attorney general doing
so — the chance to appeal to the
Supreme Court.
The high court would not take up
the question of an appeal until its
new term begins in October, and if
they take the case, a decision could
be at least a year of f. Should they
decline the case, however, samesex couples could marry again in
California.
“This is a great step forward
toward the day when everyone will
be able to marry the person they
love,” said David Boies, one of the
attor neys hir ed by the American
Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER)
to represent two California same-sex
couples who wish to marry.
Boies and his colleagues, Ted
Olson, against whom he famously
battled in the Bush v. Gor e case
that decided the 2000 election,
and Ted Boutrous, spoke to reporters after the circuit decision was
issued, in a call coordinated by
Chad Grif fin, AFER’s founder and
the new president of the Human
Rights Campaign.
Judge Walker's decision in August
2010 held that same-sex couples

䉴

PROP 8, continued on p.34

10

June 6, 2012 | www.gaycitynews.com

HEALTH

When Having HIV Is a Crime
Community Center forum focuses on criminalization throughout US as part of effort to repeal penalties
BY DUNCAN OSBORNE

GAY CITY NEWS

W

earing a light green shirt
and beige pants, Robert
Suttle was speaking to
a crowd of roughly 50
people at a forum on HIV criminalization held at New York’s Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center. He was blunt.
“I am not a criminal,” the 33-yearold said on May 24. “I am not a sex
offender, but the state of Louisiana
says I am.”
Suttle served six months in prison
after a former boyfriend, with whom
he had a difficult relationship, told
police Suttle had violated the state’s
law that criminalizes intentionally
exposing another to HIV, the virus
that causes AIDS.
Suttle pleaded guilty to avoid a longer prison term and was required to
register as a sex offender. His Louisiana driver’s license has a red banner
below his picture with the words “sex
offender” in large black letters. His
story is not unique.
Thirty-six states and territories

Sean Strub and Robert Suttle at a May 24 New York City forum on HIV criminalization.

currently have laws that make it a
crime to not disclose an HIV-positive
status to sex partners and others or
that punish exposing others to HIV.
The laws do not necessarily differen-

tiate between safe and unsafe sex or
require that anybody be infected by
the defendant.
“It undercuts the most basic message about public health, which is that

every person has to be responsible for
their own health,” said Sean Strub, a
longtime AIDS activist who is executive director of the SERO Project, a
group that opposes these laws.
The laws were enacted after Congress added a provision to 1990 legislation that funded many AIDS programs and services. The provision,
removed from the 2000 reauthorization of the original legislation, required
states to show that their criminal laws
penalized the knowing transmission of
HIV. A large number of states responded by enacting new statutes.
Some laws punish behaviors by
HIV-positive people that do not transmit HIV, such as spitting or biting,
and many do not weigh the relative
risks of transmission among various
behaviors.
“There are some states in which
courts have allowed sex toys to be a
means of transmission,” said Adrian
Guzman, an attorney with the Center for HIV Law and Policy, a nonprofit law firm.

he New York City
juvenile justice
program that was
unsuccessful in
treating one of the accused
killers of Anthony Collao
has recidivism rates that
are only marginally better
than the recidivism rates
for all of the state’s juvenile
justice programs.
Luis Tabales, now 17,
was found to be a juvenile
delinquent in Queen Family
Court in 2010 and enrolled
in the Juvenile Justice Initiative (JJI), an alternative-todetention program run by the
city’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) under
an agreement with the city’s
Department of Probation.
In JJI beginning in June
of that year, Tabales agreed
to a curfew, to attend school,
to stop using marijuana and

Anthony Collao, a straight youth killed last year by a group shouting anti-gay slurs that
allegedly included Luis Tabales.

other drugs, and to not get
arrested again. The Tabales
family received multisystemic therapy (MST) fr om
a psychologist at the Child

Center of New York (CCNY),
a private agency with an
ACS contract to carry out
the therapy with some of
the r oughly 250 juveniles

enrolled in JJI every year.
Tabales was arrested for
fare beating in September
2010 and tested positive for
marijuana six times between
July 31 and November 3.
Tabales missed 19 therapy
appointments. His mother missed others, and she
resisted enforcing elements
of the therapy. He frequently
skipped school and regularly
violated his curfew.
In December of that year,
CCNY and ACS closed his
case. This was the “most
severe sanction available,”
the judge in T abales’ case
wrote in a 98-page decision he issued on March
14 of this year. Pr obation
never issued a violation of
pr obation petition to that
judge during the entire time
Tabales was in JJI.
In 2011, on January 9,
Tabales was indicted on 11
charges in the Bronx, includ-

ing robbery and assault,
which are violent felonies. On
January 25, he was charged
with attempted robbery and
assault in Brooklyn.
Tabales and five other
young men are accused
of using anti-gay slurs as
they allegedly beat Collao to
death on a Queens street on
March 12 of last year. Their
c h a r g e s i n c l u d e m u r d e r,
manslaughter, gang assault,
and robbery, with some
charged as hate crimes.
Collao, 18, was straight.
On March 1, nine months
after Tabales entered JJI, probation delivered a violation
petition to the judge. It sent
an amended petition to the
judge on April 29 of last year.
According to ACS data, 61
percent of the juveniles who
enrolled in JJI in the city’s
2009 fiscal year, which runs

䉴

TABALES, continued on p.11

11

| June 6, 2012

䉴

CRIMINALIZATION, from p.10

The forum is part of an ongoing
effort to repeal these laws. The SERO
Project has held forums in other cities,
and Strub and Suttle testified before
a United Nations committee last year.
The UN committee will issue a report
on HIV criminalization in July.
One state, Iowa, has a “fairly developed” effort at repeal, Strub said, and
others are at the start of repeal. “There
are other states where there is sort of
the beginning of it,” he said.
The group will have a prison float
in Manhattan’s LGBT Pride March
in June.
Last year, Barbara Lee, a Democratic congresswoman from California,

䉴

introduced legislation that requires
the Pentagon, the Department of
Health and Human Services, and the
Department of Justice to review federal laws and regulations to identify
where they place “unique or additional
burdens” on people “solely as a result
of their HIV status” and encourages
their repeal. The legislation also uses
federal funding to encourage states to
repeal their laws. The legislation has
30 cosponsors.
The best evidence suggests such
laws have little or no impact on people’s behavior.
A 2007 study published in the Arizona State Law Journal compared the
sexual behavior of 248 men who have
sex with men or injecting drug users

TABALES, from p.10

from July 1 to June 30, had not been rearrested
one year after leaving the program.
In the 2010 calendar year, 32 percent of JJI
participants had a violation of probation petition,
though 20 percent of the violators were allowed to
complete the program. That same year, 38 percent of
JJI enrollees were rearrested during treatment and 39
percent of those rearrested completed the program.
In a report issued last year, the state agency
that oversees all juvenile justice programs found

in Illinois, which has an HIV criminalization law, to 242 such people in New
York, which does not have a similar
law. The study found “very weak support” for the assertion the Illinois law
affects behavior. What the study found
were people acting in accordance with
their views of what is right or wrong.
“The notion that one can get in
trouble for deceiving or endangering
others does seem to matter to behavior, but does not depend at all upon
the existence of HIV-specific laws or
the belief that the law requires specific acts by people with HIV,” the
authors wrote.
A study, published this year in the
journal AIDS Care, of 384 people with
HIV in Michigan, which has an HIV

that 49 percent of a cohort of juvenile delinquents,
who are older than seven but less than 16 and
have cases in family court, and juvenile offenders, who are in that age range but have cases in
adult criminal court, were rearrested within one
year. The cohort included juveniles released from
all programs in 2008.
The JJI enrollees are allowed to remain living in
their communities, which suggests they have committed minor crimes. The 2008 cohort includes juveniles who were detained in residential facilities and
likely committed more serious crimes.

criminalization law, concluded the
law was not associated with reduced
risky behavior, “increased perceived
responsibility for HIV transmission
prevention,” or more disclosure to
every one of a positive individual’s
sex partners. Being aware of the law
was “significantly associated” with
study participants disclosing their
status more to those who were firsttime sexual partners.
The laws have resulted in harsh
penalties for some people with HIV.
They create a “viral underclass,” Strub
said, and stigmatize people with HIV.
To the extent that those living with
the virus continue to garner attention
in the US, he said, “we ar e seen
principally as a threat to society.”

Among males in the cohort, 53 percent were
rearrested within 12 months of their release. Thirty-one percent were rearrested for a felony. Altogether, 28 percent were convicted.
The Bloomberg administration has pressed
to refor m the city’s juvenile justice programs
since 2003. Previously, the city paid for their
detention in state facilities that have been
criticized as ineffective and expensive. While the
state still detains some city juvenile delinquents,
increasingly they are housed in the city or they
participate in programs like JJI.

Robert Pinter was 52 when
an attractive man in his late
20s approached him in an
adult video
store, saying he wanted
to perform
oral sex on
him. The two
agreed to
leave the store
together and
have sex elsewhere. As they
a p p r o a c h e d t h e d o o r, t h e
younger man told Pinter he
would pay him $50, a comment that raised a red flag,
convincing Pinter he should
extract himself fr om what
was turning into an odd
encounter. As they arrived
outside, Pinter was thrown
up against a wall and arrested on prostitution charges.
The younger man was an
undercover cop.
Chris Bilal, a young African-American man, was
dancing with two gay friends
in a park when police arrived
and stopped and frisked
them. The cops, he said,
apparently felt the dancing
gave them “probable cause
to suspect we were engaged
in unlawful sexual conduct.”
Pinter and Bilal didn’t run
into trouble in the bad old

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women, often fear ful when
appr oached by police, ar e
“tricked” into agreeing to
a search that stems from
their gender nonconformity.
Things can turn ugly fast if
the woman is carrying condoms.
In 2010, in a decision
dripping with outrage,
US District Judge Shira
Scheindlin held New York
City in contempt for failing to
end enforcement of loitering
laws held unconstitutional
decades before. One of
the laws at issue was the
“loitering for sex” statute that
Lambda Legal had succeeded
in getting struck down in
1983 by New York’s highest
court, shortly after it threw
out the state’s sodomy law.
“The human toll, of course,
has been borne by the tens of
thousands of individuals who
have, at once, had their constitutional rights violated and
been swept into the penal system,” Scheindlin wrote. “More
disturbing still, it appears
that the laws — which tar get panhandling, remaining
in a bus or train station, and
‘cruising’ for sex — have been
enforced particularly against
the poor and gay men.”
When a group of fed-up
and brave patrons of the
Stonewall Inn decided to

leaders to make good decisions.
The article contained the following serious errors about our
work with Luis Tabales, who is
among the accused.
Mr. Osborne quoted Judge
Hunt’s statement that the Child
Center of NY delivered “nebulous”
therapy to Luis Tabales. This is
completely untrue. Multi-Systemic Therapy sites, like the Child
Center’s, are intensively supervised by the developer to insure
fidelity to the model that three
decades of rigorous research and
26 published studies have indicated is an effective treatment for
preventing criminal activity.
Mr. Osborne reported that,
“Eventually fearing for her son’s

safety, Tabales’ mother wanted
Probation to issue a violation
petition to Hunt so he would be
detained. CCNY talked her out of
it.” This is an incorrect statement.
The family, the Child Center, and
the Department of Probation met
to discuss what was going on. Probation made the decision to hold
off on issuing a violation of parole.
The Child Center did not
“under-report” Luis’ violations.
In fact, as required, we fully
described in monthly written
reports to the Department of Probation that Mr. Tabales was using
drugs, not attending meetings,
that he had a violation for jumping a turnstile, and more.
The Child Center of NY has

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
JUVENILE
INTERVENTION
DIDN’T FAIL TABALES

WEB MASTER
Arturo Jimenez
Arturo@gaycitynews.com

days. Pinter was arrested in
2008. Bilal and his friends
were dancing to Beyoncé,
not Judy Garland.
At some point in their
lives, many LGBT people
have been subjected to arbitrary judgments. It can merely be a matter of somebody
betraying a stereotype or
prejudice that, while painful,
may not have serious ramifications. When law enforcement is involved, however,
the consequences can be significant, even life-altering.
Arbitrary law enforcement ––
based on profiling, usually
racial or ethnic, but in many
cases also on sexual orientation or gender identity –– is
at the heart of the stop and
frisk crisis in New York City.
At the June 5 press conference in which LGBT leaders spoke up in support of a
Father’s Day march against
stop and frisk, Melissa
Sklarz, a longtime trans
activist who is president of
the Stonewall Democratic
Club of New York City, said,
“T ransgender people know
about being profiled.” Police
too often assume that any
transgender woman they
s e e i s a s e x w o r k e r. J o o Hyun Kang, the coor dinator of Communities United
for Police Reform, said trans

fight back in June 1969,
nearly any queer person alive
would have acknowledged
what arbitrary police inter ference in their lives was all
about. Today, too many of us
pretend such concer ns are
from a bygone era.
They are not. They have
not gone away for New
York’s young people of color,
straight, gay, transgend e r, o r q u e s t i o n i n g . T h e y
have not gone away for any
person whose appearance
transgresses gender norms
embraced by mainstream
society. They have not gone
away for gay men who think
they have the right to go to
an adult video store. And
they have not gone away for
black and brown men of all
ages in this city.
Our measure as people is
based on our willingness to
expand our understanding of
our common humanity. The
NAACP’s recent endorsement
of marriage equality is but
the latest example of people
of color communities coming
to embrace LGBT rights as
their cause, too. The queer
community, in turn, must be
rigorously honest in acknowledging the common cause we
have with all New Yorkers
of color in the demand that
justice be applied with an
even and temperate hand.
On Father’s Day, June 17,
join the End Stop and Frisk
Silent March Against Racial
Profiling (silentmarchnyc.
org) at noon at 110th Street
and Fifth Avenue.

June 1, 2012
To the Editor:
We mourn the death of Anthony Collao and are broken hearted
for his family who have suffered
one of the worst losses imaginable
(“Failed Juveline Intervention Led
to Anti-Gay Murder Charge,” by
Duncan Osborne, May 23-Jun. 5).
However the kind of misreporting found in Duncan Osborne’s
article “Failed Juvenile Inter vention Led to Anti-Cay Murder
Charge” will do little to help the
community cope with this tragic
event. Nor will it help our policy

devoted nearly 60 years to helping the city’s at-risk children and
youth succeed in life. But we cannot accomplish our mission alone.
Multi-Systemic Therapy relies on
complete engagement of the youth
and his family. Unfortunately, neither Mr. Tabales nor his mother
were willing to commit.
Sandra Hagan, MSW
Executive director
The Child Center of NY
Woodside, Queens
WRITE US!
Address letters to the editor of
250 words or less to Editor@GayCityNews.com. We reserve the
right to edit any letter for space or
legal considerations.

13

| June 6, 2012

PERSPECTIVE

Homophobic Pranks Ruined My Young
Life, Then Taught Me Strength
BY SAM OGLESBY
n 1945, when I was six years
old, I brought two bouquets of
flowers to school, one for my
first-grade teacher, Miss Dickerson, the other for my desk.
It was an old-fashioned desk in a
two-room country school house and
contained an ink-well. I inserted the
paper cup containing the flowers
in the inkwell and thought it was a
lovely addition to our classroom. I
had gathered the flowers from our
backyard garden and was sure they
would be a hit with my teacher and
my classmates.
They were not.
Minutes after installing my floral arrangement, I was greeted by
hoots of "Pretty Flowers!," and that
remained my name until I left the
school three years later.
Miss Dickerson seemed confounded by both my gift and the derisive
nickname bestowed on me by my
fellow students. Her apparent confusion at the sight of a boy clutching a bouquet seemed a signal to the
class to up the ante; their taunts
tur ned to insults. During r ecess
I was pounded to the ground and
later sent home with a bloody nose.
By the time I was a 14-year -

I

old freshman in high school, I had
ear ned another nickname — Mar garet Rose. This rather descriptive
moniker — I had developed into an
ef feminate adolescent — was not
shouted out by schoolyard bullies. It
was handed to me by my father, who
being the family jokester thought
that he could tease me out of my
unconventional behavior through
what he deemed comedy. While I
laughed outwardly at his funny label
for me — in the family, we all agreed
that being named after the queen of
England's younger sister was a real
hoot — inside, I felt great shame and
sadness. My photo peering from the
pages of the school yearbook in 1954
was a study in melancholic desperation. Many of my fellow students
refused to sign my yearbook, saying I was a sissy; even worse, others
wrote scathing comments addressed
to Girlie Boy and Miss Oglesby. After
tearing my photo out of the freshman class pages, I shredded and
burned the yearbook.
Midway thr ough high school, I
engineered a radical self-transfor mation, morphing into a swaggering
gym rat who pumped iron every day
and had the biggest biceps in school.
Suddenly, nobody bothered or belittled me anymore. Some girls even

started flirting with me. By senior
year, Slam Books — the 1950s notebook version of today's Facebook —
that circulated in the cafeteria and
the gym listed me as one of the coolest, most popular kids in school.
My game of deception had succeeded brilliantly. I had gone
"underground" and nobody but me
knew what really lurked inside. My
father seemed pleased that his Mar garet Rose tactic had worked. One
day, he buddied up to me, telling me
I was nearly a man now. In recognition of my impending adulthood, he
reached into his shirt pocket and
pulled out a pack of cigarettes, offering me a Camel.
Ye a r s p a s s e d a n d m y s a d n e s s
turned to toughness. Smugly satisfied, I had learned to play by straight
society's rules. I was outstanding in
college and later excelled in the professional world. Happiness came
to me slowly as I built my own tiny
sphere of optimism and fun with
a small human network of loving
support that eventually included a
domestic partner. We have been a
loving pair for 30 years.
When President Barack Obama
recently announced his support for
gay marriage, I smiled and thought
to myself how different my life might

Obama Is Killing Us
BY KELLY JEAN COGSWELL
iolence is part of
human nature.
Anybody who
says different
has never left
a three-year -old and a sixyear -old together in the
same room with one ladybug
change purse. The hair-pulling, biting, and scratching
was brutal. And my God, it
was worth it. I'd never seen
anything as beautiful as
that pleathery black and red
thing, and I was gonna keep
it no matter what the cost.
I'm not an uninhibited,
feral three-year -old anymore, and haven't bitten
anybody in years. Though
when I go upstate, I wage a

V

relentless war against mice.
I plug holes when I can, set
traps when I have to. I'm
incredibly relieved every
time I hear that particular
dull snap that means something's been caught, and
hopefully killed, and there's
one less mouse that's gonna
scratch a hole in the wall,
burst out, and crawl around
on my face.
If I avoid poison, though,
it's not because it causes
the mouse more suf fering,
but because I'm afraid an
owl or eagle might eat the
rodent and die. Or a roadkill-eating chipmunk, which
my girlfriend adores. Or it
might fall into the creek and
end up in the New York City
water supply. You never can

tell how little acts of violence
ripple outwards. Even I feel
myself getting a little more
jaded with every tiny corpse
I dump at the end of the
path. It doesn't matter that
they disappear, and I know
some other animal is at least
getting a meal.
I try to avoid violence and
believe most is unnecessary,
though I accept the idea that
individuals and nations have
the r i ght to d efend them selves, and understand how
the desire to meet violence
with violence after September 11, along with strategic
reasons, led to the war in
Afghanistan. Though there
was no reason at all to attack
Iraq. And plenty not to.
You'd think after all these

Sam Oglesby in his 1954 high school freshman
yearbook picture.

have been if President Harry Truman
had done the same thing in 1945.
Sam Oglesby, a New York-based
writer of memoirs, whose latest publication is "RAJAS BOOK — Twelve
Months in a Life," can be reached at
ogl39@aol.com.

days we'd have learned that
violence propagates itself,
dives underground. But we
play with it like fire, encour age little kids to sing songs
about killing queers. Are
surprised when thousands
of them are attacked, dozens
killed. Last year, 30 LGBT
people were murdered in the
United States of America
because of who they were.
These figures don't include
the suicides of young queer
kids, but should, because
it's still our society giving them the weapon and
encouraging them to use
it. Because homos are an
assault on our American
values, tear the fabric of
society, even bring down
large towers. We've got to
protect ourselves!
There's always a reason
for violence. So often it's
preserving America. Last
week, the New York T imes

published a chilling article,
"Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a
Test of Obama's Principles
and Will," lionizing Obama
for making the har d decisions himself, taking on the
moral weight of ordering hits
on presumed terrorists and
their entourages, who may
or may not have done anything yet. They've only committed what Orwell called
thought crimes. Nevertheless, Obama's gonna send
his unmanned, imprecise
drones to save us.
For them, no warrants,
extradition orders, and the
like. Because those require
proof of actual crimes. Which
we're not that interested in,
or Rumsfeld and Bush and
Alberto Gonzales would be
behind bars for organizing
actual murders, coordinating
real live torture.

䉴

COGSWELL, continued on p.14

14

June 6, 2012 | www.gaycitynews.com

Tens of thousands turned out on June 3 in Jackson Heights to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Queens
LGBT Pride Parade and Festival. The parade included groups ranging from the Lesbian and Big Apple Corps
marching band to the Queens Pride House, the borough’s LGBT community center — as well as one very
proud gay marcher pictured with a police officer who, as it happens, is not. The festival stage was filled with
colorful entertainment as well as elected officials such as out gay Sunnyside City Councilman Jimmy Van
Bramer (top, middle). Rocky Sanabria, a 14-year-old transgender student who will enter the Frank Sinatra
High School of the Arts in the fall, also addressed the crowd (bottom, right). Other elected officials on hand
included Jackson Heights Councilman Daniel Dromm, who is gay and a founder of the celebration, seen with
Queens State Senator Tony Avella (top, right). The parade honored the memory of Julio Rivera, a gay man
whose 1990 murder galvanized LGBT activists in the borough.

䉴

COGSWELL, from p.13

Obama's progress on LGBT issues isn't enough
to excuse murder, even if I celebrated Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton's historic speech declar ing LGBT rights are human rights. Ditto for when
Obama admitted his own newfound support for
marriage equality.
In the long term, every gain of the LGBT movement is dependent on democracy and civil liber ties. Shred the Constitution, encourage assholes
to go rogue, and we're lost. And in that regard,

Obama has gone beyond Bush, beyond rendition
and military tribunals and indefinite detention,
straight to murder. "While scores of suspects
have been killed under Mr. Obama, only one
has been taken into American custody, and the
president has balked at adding new prisoners to
Guantánamo."
Sitting in front of a PowerPoint presentation,
he is the judge and jury, God's own jurist taking on the sins of the world. I can't imagine the
hubris, sitting in his Oval Office, signing off on
drone strikes, imagining that if he acts with the

DONNA ACETO

TWENTY YEARS OF PRIDE

best of intentions, guided by a brilliant mind,
there will be no unmanageable consequences. No
major bleed-over from the battlegrounds of the
War on Terror — where no one's a civilian — into
our daily lives.
This is what I am afraid of. That his example
reinforces the idea that the wheels of justice turn
too slow. That prison is too good for some people.
That a faulty democracy is not enough when murder's so easy. The rule of law isn't for everybody.
A crime is defined by the victim. And Justice with
her scales should not be blind.

*Phone and walk-up orders only. Certain blackout dates
apply. Cannot be combined with any other offer, discount
or coupon. Offer valid through 06/30/12.
Must be 21+ years of age or older, with valid ID

unanimous three-judge
panel of the Boston-based
US Court of Appeals for the
First Circuit ruled on May 31
that Section 3 of the federal Defense of
Marriage Act (DOMA) violates the Constitutionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Fifth Amendment guarantee
of equal protection.
The ruling came on consolidated
appeals in two cases â&#x20AC;&#x201D; one brought
by Gay & Lesbian Advocates &
Defenders (Gill v. Office of Personnel Management), the other by the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
(Commonwealth v. US Department of
Health and Human Services).
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Under current Supreme Court
authority, Congressâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; denial of federal
benefits to same-sex couples lawfully
married in Massachusetts has not been
adequately supported by any permissible federal interest,â&#x20AC;? the panel concluded
regarding DOMAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s section 3.
Since the Obama administration abandoned its defense of DOMA in early 2011,
the party defending the constitutionality
of section 3 has been the Bipartisan Legal
Advisory Group (BLAG) of the House of
Representatives, a group controlled by
Republican Speaker John Boehner that
was allowed to intervene as defendant.
Given the near certainty of BLAG appealing to the Supreme Court, the appellate
panel stayed its ruling pending such
review. The high court, similarly, would
almost inevitably take such an appeal
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; since the federal government could
hardly recognize same-sex marriages in
some but not all the US appellate circuits
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and the case could be argued in the

term beginning in October, with a decision rendered by June 2013.
The cases before the court did not
require it to decide whether same-sex
couples have a constitutional right to
marry. Rather, the issue was whether
Congress could adopt a general definition of marriage for all purposes of federal law that would exclude same-sex
couples married under the laws of states
authorizing them to do so.
US District Judge Joseph L. Tauro
ruled in 2010 that there was no rational justification for what Congress had
done in enacting DOMA in 1996. The
appellate panel upheld Tauro in striking down the law but offered different
reasons for doing so.
Congress and President Bill
Clinton enacted DOMA in response
to the possibility that the courts in
Hawaii would require that state to
allow same-sex marriages as a result
of litigation then pending.
Writing for the panel, Circuit Judge
Michael Boudin, appointed to the court
by President George H.W. Bush, noted
that Section 3 â&#x20AC;&#x153;affects a thousand or
more generic cross-references to marriage in myriad federal laws. In most
cases, the changes operate to the disadvantage of same-sex married couples
in the half-dozen or so states that permit same-sex marriages. The number
of couples thus affected is estimated at
more than 100,000. Further, DOMA has
potentially serious adverse consequencesâ&#x20AC;? for those states â&#x20AC;&#x153;that choose to legalize same-sex marriages.â&#x20AC;?

ä&#x2030;´

DOMA, continued on p.18

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Jonathan Knight and Marlin Nabors, who live in Bostonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hyde Park section, are among the plaintiffs challenging DOMA.

17

| June 6, 2012

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MAINERS UNITED FOR MARRIAGE

Pieces from the 1920
1920’ss 30
30’ss 4
40’s 50’s and 60’s

Mainers United for Marriage volunteers in Sanford, near Kennebunk, on a recent Saturday.

On November 6, for the first time in the nation’s
history, marriage equality advocates will put
before voters an affirmative ballot question aiming
to give gay and lesbian couples the freedom
to marry. Having delivered more than 105,000
signatures to the Secretary of State’s Office in
Augusta this past January (in a state with only
1.33 million people), the Maine Freedom to Marry
Coalition succeeded in having the voter initiative
placed on this fall’s ballot.
On June 13 from 6-8 p.m., Mainers United
for Marriage, the coalition fighting to enact the
initiative, hosts a fundraiser in Manhattan at the
Nancy Margolis Gallery, 523 West 25th Street.
Leaders in the effort will be on hand to discuss
how the campaign is going and how New Yorkers
and others outside of Maine can help. Organizers
are asking for donations of at least $100 (action.
mainersunited.org/page/event/detail/wrjp).
Donated beer, wine, non-alcoholic beverages, and
Maine seafood hors d'oeuvres will be served.
In May 2009, then-Governor John Baldacci, a
Democrat, signed a marriage equality law passed

by the Legislature. However, in a voter referendum
that November, the measure was repealed by
a 53-47 percent margin, and Maine’s current
governor, Republican Paul LePage, is a staunch
opponent of gay marriage.
A recent poll taken by Public Policy Polling,
however, shows this November’s pro-gay initiative
has the support of 54 percent of voters, with
opposition standing at 41 percent.
The ballot question, titled “An Act to Allow
Marriage Licenses for Same Sex Couples and
Protect Religious Freedom,” reads “Do you favor
a law allowing marriage licenses for same-sex
couples that protects religious freedom by ensuring
no religion or clergy be required to perform such a
marriage in violation of their religious beliefs?”
Voters in Washington State and Maryland may
be voting on whether to approve the marriage
equality laws passed in those states earlier
this year, and LGBT advocates in Minnesota are
fighting back against a constitutional amendment
on November’s ballot that would bar same-sex
marriage in that state. — Paul Schindler

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The key legal issue was whether
Section 3 should be evaluated using
the traditional â&#x20AC;&#x153;rational basisâ&#x20AC;? test â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
under which a claimant must show
the government has no rational basis
for making distinctions under the law
based on a particular characteristic â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
or if it must meet a more demanding
form of judicial review.
Tauro concluded that Section 3 failed
to survive the traditional test, but the
court of appeals disagreed. The rational
basis test is very deferential to the legislative and executive branches, presuming a lawâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s constitutionality and upholding it if there is any hypothetical nondiscriminatory justification for it. Boudin
wrote that the plaintiffs â&#x20AC;&#x153;cannot prevailâ&#x20AC;?
using that standard.
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Consider only one of the several justifications for DOMA offered by Congress
itself, namely, that broadening the definition of marriage will reduce tax revenues
and increase Social Security payments,â&#x20AC;?
he wrote. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is the converse of the very
advantages that the Gill
plaintiffs are seeking, and
Congress could rationally
have believed that DOMA
would reduce costs, even
if newer studies of the
actual economic effects
of DOMA suggest that it
may in fact raise costs for
the federal government.â&#x20AC;?
What Congress could have believed
when it passed the statute, then, is
critical, and so this rationale would be
acceptable, the panel found.
The court concluded, however, that
the traditional rational basis test is not
appropriate for these cases. Still, the
court did not turn to â&#x20AC;&#x153;intermediateâ&#x20AC;? or
â&#x20AC;&#x153;heightenedâ&#x20AC;? scrutiny as the appropriate standard for reviewing DOMA, hewing to the circuitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 2008 precedent in
rejecting a constitutional challenge to
the Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Ask, Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Tell policy. In that
case, the First Circuit relied on the fact
that in 1996, when the Supreme Court,
in Romer v. Evans, threw out Coloradoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
Amendment 2, which barred the state
and local governments from enacting gay
rights laws, it failed to identify â&#x20AC;&#x153;sexual
orientationâ&#x20AC;? as a â&#x20AC;&#x153;suspect classificationâ&#x20AC;?
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; like race â&#x20AC;&#x201D; for which any distinctions
in law must be justified using a demanding standard of review.
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Nothing indicates that the Supreme
Court is about to adopt this new suspect classification when it conspicuously failed to do so in Romer â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a case
that could readily have been disposed by
such a demarche,â&#x20AC;? Boudin observed.
Intermediate and heightened scrutiny, however, are not the only alternatives to traditional rational basis review,
the court found. Boudin wrote that
the Supreme Court has â&#x20AC;&#x153;several times
struck down state or local enactments
without invoking any suspect classification. In each, the protesting group was

historically disadvantaged or unpopular,
and the statutory justification seemed
thin, unsupported, or impermissible. It
is these decisions â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not classic rational
basis review â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that the Gill plaintiffs and
the Justice Department [which is now
arguing against DOMA] most usefully
invoke in their briefs.â&#x20AC;?
The court identified three significant
precedents. In 1973, the Supreme Court
struck down a provision of the federal
food stamp program that excluded households containing unrelated adults, based
on legislative history showing that it was
motivated by a â&#x20AC;&#x153;bare congressional desire
to harm a politically unpopular groupâ&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
â&#x20AC;&#x153;hippiesâ&#x20AC;? living together communally.
In 1985, the high court overturned a
local zoning law enacted to keep a group
home for mentally disabled adults out of
a particular area, finding the provision
was adopted based on â&#x20AC;&#x153;mere negative
attitudes, or fear, unsubstantiated by
factors which are properly cognizable in
a zoning proceeding.â&#x20AC;?
Finally, the court pointed to the
Romer decision itself, wher e the

The US Supreme Court could
take up DOMA as early as the term
beginning in October.
Supreme Court found that Amendment 2 was a â&#x20AC;&#x153;status-based enactment
divorced from any factual context from
which we could discern a relationship to
a legitimate state interest.â&#x20AC;?
The Supreme Court was applying a
flexible approach to equal protection,
Boudin, in essence, argued, not one
based on labels, but rather one â&#x20AC;&#x153;sensitive to the circumstances of the case
and not dependent entirely on abstract
categorizations.â&#x20AC;?
The three cases Boudin cited were all
based in â&#x20AC;&#x153;the historic patterns of disadvantage suffered by the group adversely
affected by the statute.â&#x20AC;? In both the Romer
case and the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas sodomy case, the high court concluded, in
Boudinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s words, that â&#x20AC;&#x153;gays and lesbians
have long been the subject of discrimination.â&#x20AC;? Given that history, DOMA merits â&#x20AC;&#x153;a
more careful assessment of the justifications than the light scrutiny offered by
conventional rational basis review.â&#x20AC;?
Section 3, the panel concluded,
imposed burdens on same-sex couples
â&#x20AC;&#x153;comparable to those the Court found
substantialâ&#x20AC;? in the three precedents
cited. As a result, â&#x20AC;&#x153;the extreme deference
accorded to ordinary economic legislationâ&#x20AC;Ś would not be extended to DOMA
by the Supreme Court.â&#x20AC;?
The suit brought by Massachusetts
introduced the complicating factor of
federalism, which the panel found also

ä&#x2030;´

DOMA, continued on p.19

19

| June 6, 2012

ä&#x2030;´

DOMA, from p.18

justified a more demanding form of
judicial review than the rational basis
test, since Congress was intruding into
the sphere of domestic relations law,
traditionally a state function.
Here, the court did not accept Tauroâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s conclusion that Section 3 violated
the Tenth Amendment and the Spending Clause of the Constitution, finding that the Supreme Court had only
applied these provisions to cases where
Congress sought to interfere with state
programs. Marriage equality states,
however, are negatively affected by
DOMA, the panel concluded.
â&#x20AC;&#x153;The denial of federal benefits to samesex couples lawfully married does burden the choice of states like Massachusetts to regulate the rules and incidents
of marriage; notably, the Commonwealth
stands both to assume new administrative burdens and to lose funding for Medicaid or veteransâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; cemeteries solely on
account of its same-sex marriage laws,â&#x20AC;?
Boudin wrote. â&#x20AC;&#x153;These consequences
do not violate the Tenth Amendment or
Spending Clause, but Congressâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; effort to
put a thumb on the scales and influence
a stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s decision as to how to shape its
own marriage laws does bear on how the
justifications are assessed.â&#x20AC;?
In assessing the justifications
advanced for Section 3, the court quickly discounted the idea that â&#x20AC;&#x153;preserving
scarce government resourcesâ&#x20AC;? could
stand up as a rationale. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Where the distinction is drawn
against a historically disadvantaged group and
has no other basis,
Supreme Court
precedent marks
this as a reason
undermining rather than bolstering
the distinction,â&#x20AC;?
since such a group, Boudin wrote, â&#x20AC;&#x153;has
historically been less able to protect itself
through the political process.â&#x20AC;?
The court agreed with Tauro that
enacting Section 3 â&#x20AC;&#x153;to support childrearing in the context of stable marriageâ&#x20AC;?
was not rational. DOMA would â&#x20AC;&#x153;not affect
the gender choices of those seeking marriage,â&#x20AC;? the court pointed out, noting the
â&#x20AC;&#x153;lack of any demonstrated connection
between DOMAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s treatment of same-sex
couples and its asserted goal of strengthening the bonds and benefits to society
of heterosexual marriage.â&#x20AC;?
Congress stated goal in 1996 of
expressing â&#x20AC;&#x153;moral disapproval of homosexualityâ&#x20AC;? is no longer a valid basis for
legislation, in light of the 2003 high court
sodomy ruling. Though the Supreme
Courtâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick ruling held that Georgiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s disapproval of
homosexuality was a justification for its
sodomy law, the 2003 Lawrence sodomy
ruling stated that Bowers was â&#x20AC;&#x153;wrong
when it was decided.â&#x20AC;?

The First Circuit panel also addressed
the â&#x20AC;&#x153;newâ&#x20AC;? rationale advanced by the Justice Department in front of Tauro in 2010
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; before Attorney General Eric Holder
reversed his thinking â&#x20AC;&#x201D;that â&#x20AC;&#x153;faced with a
prospective change in state marriage laws,
Congress was entitled to â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;freezeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; the situation and reflect.â&#x20AC;? DOMA, the panel pointed
out, â&#x20AC;&#x153;was not framed as a temporary timeout.â&#x20AC;? Despite fears expressed in Congress
that state judges would â&#x20AC;&#x153;imposeâ&#x20AC;? samesex marriage on a reluctant electorate, the
court found that voters did not need any
assistance from Congress on this score
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; as evidenced by the dozens of state
constitutional bans on marriage equality
enacted in recent years.
â&#x20AC;&#x153;We conclude, without resort to suspect classifications,â&#x20AC;? wrote Boudin,
â&#x20AC;&#x153;that the rationales offered do not provide adequate support for Section 3 of
DOMA. Several of the reasons given do
not match the statute, and several others are diminished by specific holdings
in Supreme Court decisions more or less
directly on point. If we are right in thinking that disparate impact on minority
interests and federalism concerns both
require somewhat more in this case than
almost automatic deference to Congressâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;
will, this statute fails that test.â&#x20AC;?
Boudin made a point to emphasize
that the panelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ruling did not rely on
another argument the plaintiffs had
made, that DOMAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;hidden but dominant purpose was hostility to homosexuality.â&#x20AC;? Comments by individual members
of Congress should not be attributed to

The case before the court did
not require it to decide whether
same-sex couples have a constitutional
right to marry.
everybody who had voted for the statute,
in light of its broad bipartisan support in
1996, he argued.
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Traditions are the glue that holds
society together,â&#x20AC;? he wrote â&#x20AC;&#x201D; offering a
more benign explanation for DOMAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
enactment â&#x20AC;&#x201D; â&#x20AC;&#x153;and many of our own traditions rest largely on belief and familiarity â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not on benefits firmly provable in
court. The desire to retain them is strong
and can be honestly held.â&#x20AC;?
The fact that DOMA may not have
resulted purely from homophobia, however, does not change the fact that, as Boudin wrote, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Supreme Court decisions in
the last 50 years call for closer scrutiny of
government action touching upon minority group interests and of federal action in
areas of traditional state concern.â&#x20AC;?
Boudin was joined on the appellate
panel by Chief Judge Sandra L. Lynch, a
Clinton appointee, and Juan R. Torruella,
put on the court by Ronald Reagan. The
majority of the three-judge panel, then,
was appointed by Republican presidents.

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Taking a Tough, High Road Difficult but rewarding material
punctuates this year’s Human Rights Watch Film Festival
CALL ME KUCHU
n many parts of our world, standing up for
Directed by Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika
even the most basic human rights can be a
Zouhali-Worrall
challenge of Herculean proportions. To go on
In English and Luganda with English subtitles
the record is hard, but allowing yourself to
Closing Night Film, Jun. 28 at 7 p.m.
be filmed? Words like brave and defiant don’t
This documentary opens simply enough with an anniseem big enough. The documentaries in this year’s versary party for two gay men who have been together
Human Rights Watch Film Festival capture personal for nine years. It seems like a very simple backyard gathdramas, depicting oppressed lives with conviction and ering, but we quickly learn that while simply living their
a lot of artistry. The parts that are the
lives, they are up against a government
most compelling, however, involve HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FILM and a public that happily calls for their
seeing and hearing people tell their
deaths, citing God’s law, just because
FESTIVAL
own stories of struggle and sacrifice.
they are kuchu, or queer. David Kato,
Co-presented by the Film Society
of Lincoln Center
This year’s festival presents 16 doc“the first openly gay man in Uganda,” and
Walter Reade Theatre
umentaries and fiction films from 12
his fellow LGBT activists are the party
165 W. 65th St.
countries; 14 of them are making their
guests, and we learn about how they creJun. 14-28
New York premieres. While the festival
ated SMUG (Sexual Minorities Uganda)
Full information, tickets at ff.hrw.org
has five themes — LGBT and migrants’
and their battle with a national media
rights; health, development, and the
that publishes their photos and calls for
environment; personal testimony and witnessing; report- their hangings.
ing in crises; and women’s rights — what really emerges
We also meet Giles Mahume, the publisher of Uganmost is how the men and women in these films strive for da’s homophobic newspaper Rolling Stone, who calmly
and demand their dignity in the face of oppression. Some explains how they use “disguise” — another word for
are willing to pay for this struggle with their own lives.
entrapment — to learn who is gay and then expose them
publicly. It’s very difficult to reconcile how someone can
so calmly, dispassionately, and with a smile talk about
deliberately ruining people’s lives. After a bomb blast,
credited to Al Qaeda, the media blames Uganda’s gays.
Kato worries that accusations of treason will endanger
their lives.
We also meet two women, Naome and Stosh, who were
forced to go into hiding after being outed. Friends and
family don’t seem to understand why they are lesbians. A
common question is, “Did you do this to earn money?”
The film culminates with a deadly legislative initiative against gays that for now, at least, remains stalled
In Uganda, Rolling Stone is a newspaper that literally hunts down homosexuals.
in the Ugandan legislature. The fact that the proposal
HRW

I

is even in play is a tragedy, but it’s uplifting to see the
sheer joy the activists share when the vote is postponed.
As one of them says, “You stay with your strength.”

REPORTERO
Directed by Bernardo Ruiz
In English and Spanish with English subtitles
Jun. 21 at 4 p.m.; Jun. 22 at 9:30 p.m.; Jun. 23 at
3:30 p.m.
Sensationalism has different translations. In a celebrity-obsessed America, it might be the latest Kardashian
misstep, but south of the border, it is political corruption and narcotics trafficking that make headlines. The
difference is critical. Here, we might get disgusted with
non-news. In Mexico, journalists face death threats.
“Reportero” is the story of Zeta, a 32-year -old
newspaper produced in Tijuana that covers the
drug wars, corruption, and other social ills. “The
only way to do investigative journalism [in Mexico] would be if Zeta was journalist-owned,” we
learn. In Mexico, the press has been run by either
the gover nment or corporations. To maintain
its independence, Zeta is printed in California

䉴

FESTIVAL, continued on p.30

HRW

BY SETH J. BOOKEY

In “Little Heaven,” on her 13th birthday, Lydia is told she was born with HIV and
will be sent to live in an orphanage.

THEATER

BY CHRISTOPHER BYRNE

“

eter and the Starcatcher”
has arrived on Broadway,
and the subtle improvements made since its run at
New York Theatre Workshop
— which left me decidedly nonplussed
— have turned this into a charming
piece perfectly pitched to a family audience, as one would expect from the Disney theatrical team.
While the story remains intact as a
prequel to Disney’s “Peter Pan” and has
precious little in common with J.M.
Barrie’s original — based as it is on a
Disney-Hyperion novel by Dave Barry
and Ridley Pearson — the theatrics
have been turned down a few notches
in the current staging. The result is a
piece that is accessible and wisely more

P

intent on clarity of narrative than on its heart. That heart is what draws us
reveling in its own cleverness. Directors into the story and gives it a human cenRoger Rees and Alex Timbers deserve ter. That has made all the difference.
The cast remains largely intact from
credit for the excellent fine-tuning of
the original production, and they have
their original work.
Where the first act seemed frenetic all grown into their parts wonderfully.
Celia Keenan-Bolger is
and unclear previously,
PETER AND THE
terrific as Molly, Adam
the story now emerges as
Chanler-Berat is consisthe primary motivating
STARCATCHER
Brooks Atkinson Theatre
tently winning as the Boy
device, and the creative
256 W. 47th St.
who becomes Peter, and
use of the company and a
Mon.-Thu. at 7 p.m.
handful of props to create Fri.-Sat. at 8 p.m.; Wed., Sat. at 2 p.m. Christian Borle is hilarious as Black Stache.
the scenes — including
$59-$129; ticketmaster.com
Or 800-745-3000
In reviewing the New
ropes, boxes, and pieces
York Theater Workshop
of fabric — organically
supports the narrative rather than com- production, I said that the show didn’t
peting with it. The second act flows flu- seem to know its audience. Well, it’s
idly out of the first so by the end of the found it — anyone with a remnant of
piece, we feel that we’ve gone on a full a child’s sense of wonder and a delight
in theatrical storytelling will find “Peter
journey with the characters.
Most importantly, the piece has found and the Starcatcher” irresistible.

O&M CO.

Flying High “Peter and the Starcatcher” lands on Broadway, finds its heart

Adam Chanler-Berat and Christian Borle in “Peter and the
Starcatcher.”

Mother and Son Mathieu Demy’s “Americano” poignantly evokes
parentage by Agnès Varda’s “Documenteur”
BY GARY M. KRAMER
athieu Demy,
son of filmmakers Agnès
Varda and the
late Jacques
Demy, makes an ambitious,
even audacious feature directorial debut with “Americano.”
The story concer ns Martin
(Demy), a Parisian with an
American passport flying to
Los Angeles to handle his later
mother Emilie’s estate.
Martin and Emilie are characters from Varda’s 1981 film
“Documenteur.” In that film,
the then eight-year-old Demy
played Martin, who searched
for a home in Los Angeles with
his mother, Emilie. In “Americano,” Demy continues Martin’s
story, and he skillfully incorporates clips from “Documenteur”
to create Martin’s “memories”
from his childhood.
It may sound like a solipsistic stunt — picking up the life
of a character he played in his
real-life mother’s film to tell a
story about the death of his
fictional character’s mother
— but it pays off handsomely.
By creating a quasi-sequel to
“Documenteur,” Demy adds a
poignant dimension to Martin’s
story about finding “home” and
re-inventing himself.
It is particularly affecting
to watch the distraught Martin, with his hangdog expression, rummaging through his
mother’s apartment. He finds
photographs that trigger memories and feelings of abandonment. He experiences an indelible sense of grief one character

MPI PICTURES

M

Salma Hayek and Mathieu Demy in Demy’s “Americano.”

calls “reactional depression.”
These are universal qualities —
and nicely portrayed in such an
obviously personal film.
“Americano” does not focus
exclusively on dysfunctional
family drama, however. Demy
also positions his film as a
twist on the road movie genre,
in which the main character
leaves home to find himself.
After Martin arrives in Los
Angeles, he makes two discoveries — one that his mother was
a painter and the other that she
kept in touch with his childhood
friend Lola. These revelations,
along with his mother’s will that
leaves Lola her house, lead Martin to Tijuana, where the second
half of the film unfolds.
In the first act of “Americano,”
Martin is in careful control of his
emotions, but he turns impassioned in the Mexican sequence.
He needs to find Lola (Salma
Hayek) in order to understand

why his mother perhaps loved otherwise be willing to extend
him. But Martin is grieving and
her more than him.
Lola, who works in a seedy he is also obsessed, and anyone
— though possibly once high- able to empathize with him will
class — strip club called “Amer- find his descent to rock boticano,” is an enigmatic woman. tom oddly cathartic. Even if the
film risks seemApproached by
ing ludicrous
Martin, she adaAMERICANO
as Martin sinks
mantly responds
Directed by Mathieu Demy
MPI Pictures
into crushing
that she refuses
Opens Jun. 15
despair, there is
to live in the past,
Landmark’s Sunshine Cinema
as she argues he 143 E. Houston St., btwn. First & something fascinating about his
does, and shows
Second Aves.
journey.
more interest in
landmarktheatres.com
This is in part
his money than in
because Demy
the reasons for his
goes so deep into his perfor sudden appearance.
As Martin tries time and mance. His broken English
again to connect with his child- and facial expressions affecthood friend — spending money ingly convey the bewilderment
to talk with her at the club and and innocence he brings to his
tracking her down on her off encounters in Mexico. When
hours — “Americano” may exas- Martin parks a vintage 1966
perate some viewers. He loses cherry red Mustang converthis car, his money, and even his ible (which he has “borrowed”)
dignity, as well as a good mea- on the streets of Tijuana one
sure of the patience we might night, only he seems surprised

it is missing the next day. Martin is a character who does not
know how to ask the questions despite the urgency of his
search for answers. Demy plays
this guileless character expertly, conveying sincerity even in
Martin’s most inept moments.
Hayek’s Lola proves an apt
foil for Martin. Her entrance
is a dazzling lip-synched routine that shows the endur ing allure of a facially scarred,
money-hungry prostitute. Martin is unable to convince her
he can change her life, but she
is happy to take his money as
he tries. Hayek is utterly convincing in her role, exuding
an appropriate mix of sleazy
toughness and vulnerability.
Some viewers may judge
“Americano” a curious misfire,
but Demy’s film offers puzzling
layers to enjoy. Surely it is no
coincidence that Demy casts
Chiara Mastroianni as his character’s girlfriend, Claire. Mastroianni’s mother, Catherine
Deneuve, starred in Demy’s
father’s celebrated film “The
Umbrellas of Cherbourg.” And
“Lola” was the title of another of
père Demy’s most famous films.
Yo u n g D e m y a l s o c a s t s
another famous filmmaker’s
offspring, Geraldine Chaplin,
as Emilie’s best friend, Linda.
Showing up in the Mustang
convertible to meet Martin
in LA, Chaplin wears a neck
brace and an LA Dodgers baseball cap. She speaks rapidly
and hysterically about Emilie,
oblivious to Martin’s grief. It is
a wacky, dizzying moment in a
wonderfully offbeat film full of
such oddball scenes.

on male bonding and military machismo. L ynn Shelton’s 2009 br eakthrough “Humpday” falls into this tradition, depicting a clash of male egos
with a wicked sense of humor.
Shelton is also interested in gay and
lesbian themes. While I don’t know
where her sexuality lies, her treatment of them suggests she’s an outsider here, too. “Humpday” revolves
around two heterosexual guys who

decide to make a porno in which they
have sex with each other. Although its
ending made sense in terms of these
particular characters’ motivations, it
still felt like a cop-out. “Your Sister’s
Sister” offers up the latest in a long
line of movie lesbians who have sex
with men, although we later discover
that the character did so largely in an
attempt to get pregnant.
“Your Sister’s Sister” begins at a

memorial party a year after the death
of Jack’s (Mark Duplass) brother Tom.
While one person offers a sentimental speech about how the film “Hotel
Rwanda” inspired Tom to volunteer
at a homeless shelter, Jack recalls his
brother’s days as a teenage bully.
Seeing the trouble Jack is having
with Tom’s death, Tom’s ex-girlfriend

䉴

SISTER, continued on p.27

| June 6, 2012

FILM

27

A Weekend of Youthful Abandon and Serious Lessons
Patrik-Ian Polk explores African-American gay friendship in “The Skinny”
BY GARY M. KRAMER
ut writer, director,
and singer PatrikIan Polk has created an enjoyable
comedy-drama
with “The Skinny,” the story
of four African-American gay
men and one lesbian reuniting
a year after finishing college.
The group of friends come
together for a weekend to celebrate Gay Pride in New York
— and face a variety of romantic crises in the process.
In a recent phone interviews,
Polk, who directed “Punks”
(2001) and created the 2005
Logo series “Noah’s Arc,”
explained that with “The Skinny,” his goal was quite simply to
create “a party weekend movie.”
As he developed the storylines,
however, both comic and dramatic situations emerged.
Magnus (Jussie Smollett)
faces trouble with his boyfriend,
Ryan (Dustin Ross), who may
be cheating on him. Joey (Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman), a shy
yet sarcastic guy, and Langston (Shanika Warren-Markland), a lesbian with obvious
smarts, both pine for potentially
unavailable partners — a stripper and a bartender, respectively — at a club they frequent.
Meanwhile, Sebastian (Blake
Young-Fountain) hopes that the
more experienced Kyle (Anthony
Burrell) will be his first.

䉴

TSBB RELEASING

O

Jussie Smollett and Shanika Warren-Markland are two college friends among a group reuniting for Gay Pride in New York.

Polk said he made a very spe- ing instruction about the approcific choice to have his charac- priate ways to douche for anal
sex, the importance of condoms,
ters just one year out of college.
“College is the last bastion the risks of human papillomavifor random connections, where rus (HPV), the treatment course
you can be thrown into the mix for post-exposure prophylaxis
with anyone,” he explained. “It’s (PEP), and why it is critical to
a bubble — you shake it around get tested — and re-tested — for
HIV. The mesand fall where
THE SKINNY
sages he sends
you fall — and
Directed by Patrik-Ian Polk
demand attenthose friends
TSBB Releasing
tion as the rates
often become lifeOpens Jun. 8
Quad Cinema
of HIV in the
long friends.”
34 W. 13th St.; quadcinema.com
African-Ameri“The Skinny”
Faison Firehouse Theatre
can community
explores love
6 Hancock Pl. at W. 124th St.
documented in
and trust among
near Manhattan Ave.
faisonfirehouse.org
the end credits
these friends
attest to.
as the charac“These characters are young
ters drop in and out of crushes.
Comic scenes alternate with a and figuring things out as they
handful of serious segments make their way into adulthood,”
focused on safe sex. Throughout Polk said. “If you’re 21 and still
the film, we see characters offer- a virgin, these are things you

ing for something similar. While Cassavetes’ films were carefully scripted,
Iris (Emily Blunt) stages an “interven- they were often mistaken for improv
tion,” telling him he should stay alone exercises. Much of “Your Sister’s Sisfor a week in her family’s cabin off the ter” was genuinely improvised, and
coast of Washington State. When Jack “Humpday” was made with a script
but without pre-writgets there, he discovers that Iris’ sister Han- YOUR SISTER’S SISTER ten dialogue. In the latDirected by Lynn Shelton
ter film, this technique
nah (Rosemarie DeWitt)
IFC Films
worked. In “Your Sisis already there. She’s
Opens Jun. 15
ter’s Sister,” Shelton
a lesbian recovering
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at W. Third St.
reaches for an emofrom the breakup of a
ifccenter.com
tional truth through
seven-year relationship.
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
on-the-spot interacThough Iris implies that
Lincoln Center, 144 W. 65th St.
tions from her cast.
Jack should drink less,
filmlinc.com
The problem is that
he and Hannah split a
bottle of tequila and wind up sleeping they’re still working from a narrative
together. They’re quite unprepared for whose outlines are grossly phony.
The relationship between Iris and
a visit from Iris the next day.
Most of John Cassavetes’ films Hannah is quite believable. It’s far
offered up melodrama disguised — less comprehensible why both women
through acting and directorial style — would want to spend so much time
as realism. Shelton seems to be aim- with Jack. To be fair, the film — by
SISTER, from p.26

have to face. And there are particular ways that young people
encounter these issues versus
how a 30- or 40-year-old does.
It was interesting to explore that
aspect of gay life.”
The film’s focus on sexual
responsibility does not stand in
the way of its eroticism, however. Plenty of skin is on display
during a passionate tryst in a
nightclub bathroom as well as
during a sex party. Polk aimed to
balance sex and sex education,
explaining, “We know young people have sex, and it’s important
to show that and not shy away
from it. But it’s also important
not to shy away from some of the
social issues around sex.”
Of “The Skinny,” he said. “I
wanted it to be sexier than anything I’ve ever done.”

having Hannah tell Jack, in no uncertain terms, how desperate he seems
and suggest he get away for a while
— does initially acknowledge his
unattractive side. Her concern for
him, however, soon gives way to the
characters backstabbing and betraying one another in small and large
ways — from putting butter in a vegan’s mashed potatoes to poking holes
in a condom. Still, the film seems
unaware about just what jerks these
characters can be. It ends with the
three of them prepared to raise a family together if necessary.
In “Humpday,” Shelton worked from
a limited visual palette. Her cinematographer’s video camera was relatively low-grade, and almost all her shots
were close-ups taken from a handheld
camera. She’s expanded her visual
vocabulary greatly in “Your Sister’s
Sister.” In fact, all the scenes were

In a sequence filmed during a
Pride celebration in Harlem, the
film also celebrates gay AfricanAmerican history.
“We were there by the graciousness with GMHC, and they
welcomed us onto the parade,”
Polk said. “The parade happened the day after gay marriage passed, so the atmosphere
was particularly celebratory. It
was spectacular to capture how
electrified the air was.”
When the friends visit the
“sacred, hallowed ground” of
Langston Hughes’ apartment,
Polk creates a wonderful scene
that pays respect to the gay
poet, playwright, and novelist
who was a towering figure in the
Harlem Renaissance.
The filmmaker hopes that
viewers will “remember our history and where we come from. A
lot of the strides we’ve made and
are still making are from years
ago. The youth of today live in
a fast-food culture and have so
much information at their fingertips, they don’t seek it out.
Gay history is not generally
taught in schools. It was important for me to show this and
for them young kids to check
this stuff out, and see Hughes’
neighborhood and think about
what that time was like. If it
inspires kids to look Hughes up,
that’s a good thing.”
Polk added, “It is always
good to slip in lessons in
entertainment.”

shot from two cameras simultaneously. There’s a much greater variety of
camera angles. The film still winds up
feeling frustratingly claustrophobic.
The problem doesn’t lie with Shelton’s
choice of camera angles but with
her decision to stage 90 percent of it
in the cabin. She uses long shots of
the island’s exteriors as punctuation;
these images are expressive enough
to suggest they could have added up
to something more than mere breaks
in the tension.
The ending of “Your Sister’s Sister”
affirms the merits of unconventional
family structures — as well as arthouse ambiguity. It’s too bad that the
90 minutes that came before cobble
together an aura of reality and contrived plot twists. “Humpday” showed
that Shelton has talent, particularly as
a director of actors, but “Your Sister’s
Sister” is a disappointing follow-up.

28

June 6, 2012 | www.gaycitynews.com

BOOKS

A Splash of Hollywood Glitter
Gay Frenchman recalls how dashing, closeted Anthony Perkins
armed him for life

was a precocious reader from my
earliest age, devouring the written word as my chums gobbled
candy. Unlike them, I found my
heroes in books, not in the movies. But when, at the age of 10, I saw the
1957 black-and-white film “Fear Strikes
Out,” I found myself fascinated — captivated, really — by Anthony Perkins
when, in his first major critical success, he
played the mentally troubled Boston Red
Sox baseball player Jimmy Piersall striving unsuccessfully to please an emotionally distant, demanding, and authoritarian
father, cuttingly portrayed by Karl Malden.
For reasons I was then too young to
put into words, I was drawn to Perkins
as a moth to a flame — to his awkward
grace, his intelligent but soulful and
troubled eyes and shy half-smile, his
marvelously tall and athletic slim, wideshouldered body, his vulnerability.
After that, I would immediately go see
anything with Perkins in it. At 13, with my
hormones beginning to rage (although my
sense of difference from other boys still
had not found a consciously acknowledged
vocabulary), I rushed to see him in what I
knew even then was a trashy romantic comedy, 1960’s “The Tall Story” — my interest
being to see Perkins in a minimum of clothing as a college basketball star opposite his
on-screen love interest, Jane Fonda.
I went so far as to acquire the three
albums Perkins recorded as a quite talented pop crooner in the mid and late
1950s. With all sorts of moist, only halfformed fantasies swirling amorphous-

I

ly through my head, I wore out, with
repeated playing, his 1958 chart-topping
hit, “Moonlight Swim.” As with his pop
music efforts, it’s often forgotten that
Perkins was nominated for a Tony award
for his role in the 1960 Frank Loesser
musical “Greenwillow”.
It was not until a decade later, when
I was caught up in the post-Stonewall
gay liberation effervescence and able to
begin accepting that my orientation was
(that dreaded word) homosexual that
I finally realized what had drawn me
as a youngster to the charismatic actor
— Tony Perkins was as queer as a the
proverbial three-dollar bill. From showbiz obsessed new gay chums, I heard
about his legendary promiscuity, including his affairs with Tab Hunter, Rudolph
Nureyev, Stephen Sondheim (with whom
he co-wrote the film “The Last of Sheila”),
and the longest-running one he’d had — Young pop star Dave and his willowy blonde lover Patrick in Puerto Rico.
with the dancer and choreographer Grover Dale. I also learned that Perkins was be pitied rather than admired (though which is steadily climbing the French
deeply closeted (though his penchant for the great historian and essayist Martin best-seller lists.
“L’homme de passage” would never be
his own sex was an open secret in show- Duberman, in his candid 1991 “Cures: A
biz circles) and self-hating. Perkins sub- Gay Man’s Odyssey,” makes amply clear classed as great literature, but I found it
jected himself to a series of psychiatric how our homophobic culture compelled quite touching and revealingly honest. In
attempts to “cure” his homosexuality, so many otherwise intelligent people to October 1970, Patrick was 20 years old
and a virgin, earning a modest living as a
even going so far as to submit, in 1972, seek similar phony transformations).
A new memoir, “L’homme de passage: salesperson in Yves St. Laurent’s men’s
to electroshock aversion therapy, right at
the moment the gay liberation movement une histoire d’amours” (“The Transient: A boutique in Saint Germain des Prés on
was smashing the taboos on homosexu- Story of Loves”), published this spring in Paris’ Left Bank. With a decent middleality, making front-page news, and forc- Paris, recounts the tale of a young man class education and as the only one at
whose life was utterly changed after being the store proficient in English, it was his
ing open many closet doors.
He finally managed to have his first seduced by Perkins, with whom he had lot to wait on celebrities such as Peter
sexual experience with a woman at the a three-month affair. The author, Patrick Sellers and Greta Garbo.
Still, as the French say, he was ill at
age of 39, bedding Victoria Principal, his Loiseau, has for the past four decades
co-star in “The Life and Times of Judge been the partner of a popular, Dutch-born ease in his skin. He hated his nose, his
Roy Bean” — a dalliance later confirmed French singer, Wouter Otto Levenbach, chin, his eyes — his whole face, in fact
— and his too-thin body; as a teenage
by the actress. The following year, he who goes by the single name Dave.
Dave first came to public prominence vegetarian, he’d been hospitalized by his
married model and photographer Berry
Berenson — the granddaughter of legend- as the star of the French version of the parents for anorexia. Patrick had neimusical “Godspell,” in ther girlfriends nor boyfriends, and his
ary fashion designer Elsa
Schiaparelli and sister
L’HOMME DE PASSAGE: which he had a critically only homosexual encounter came when,
three-year run, struck by an urgent need to pee, he’d
of the jet-setting modelUNE HISTOIRE D’AMOURS acclaimed
followed by any num- gone to relieve himself in one of Paris’
actress Marissa Berenber of million-selling hit now vanished Vespasians — odiferous
son — with whom he
By Patrick Loiseau
singles in the 1970s and open-air urinals. There, he was simultaproduced two sons. The
In French
‘80s. His sharp-tongued neously groped by two older men, which
“cure,” of course, didn’t
Editions Didier Carpentier
editions-carpentier.fr
wit and self-deprecating shocked and repulsed him so much he
take, and he continued
19.5 Euros; 269 pages
humor have made him a zipped up before climaxing but wet his
to have countless sameregular guest for decades pants and shoes as he fled. (In Edmund
sex affairs, primarily with
young men, until he died of AIDS in 1982. on all the important French TV and radio White’s admirable anthology “The Faber
The electroshock treatments took a talk shows and, at times, host of his own Book of Gay Short Fiction,” poet Alfred
terrible toll on Perkins — the talent that programs. His looks and voice largely Corn’s marvelous short story “In Praise
made him sought after by such distin- undiminished, he made headlines in the of Vespasian” makes clear just what went
guished film directors as Claude Cha- past decade when he became the first on in those legendary pissoirs.)
Patrick was less successful in escaping
brol, Jules Dassin, and Orson Welles well-known show-biz personality to enter
faded away, as did his looks. My child- into the French version of a civil union, the troubling thoughts that certain men
hood fascination with Perkins faded as with Loiseau, who is also his lyricist. The inspired in him; his instinct to see those
well, and since my early gay liberation couple, often seen together on the talk- yearnings as sick and depraved only
days and his electroshock treatments show circuit, have recently been appearhe’d seemed to me a tragic figure, one to ing on behalf of Loiseau’s new book,
䉴 LOISEAU, continued on p.33

EDITIONS DIDIER CARPENTIER

EDITIONS DIDIER CARPENTIER

BY DOUG IRELAND

| June 6, 2012

THEATER

29

Literary Lambs
Feeble power grabs and back stabs among the bookish set
BY DAVID KENNERLEY
n the mid-1980s, “The Common
Pursuit” had a healthy run Off
Broadway and won the Lucille
Lortel Award and Outer Critics
Circle Award for best play.
The soapy drama, which centers on a
group of starry-eyed students at Cambridge University who launch a literary magazine and struggle to keep it
afloat over two decades, highlights how
best laid plans, in both business and
pleasure, have a way of turning out in
extraordinary ways, sometimes for better
but usually for worse. Time has a way of
cheating dreams.
As the current Roundabout revival
makes clear, time has not been kind to
this play. Even director Moisés Kaufman,
who worked miracles with “I Am My Own
Wife,” “33 Variations,” and “The Laramie
Project,” can’t quite rescue it.
First of all, the plot — publishing a
literary magazine (also titled the Common Pursuit) — may be too esoteric for Jacob Fishel, Tim McGeever, Josh Cooke, and Lucas Near-Verbrugghe in Simon Gray’s “The Common Pursuit,” directed by Moisés Kaufman.
today’s audiences, even subscriptionpaying New Yorkers. It’s hard to muster annoying hacking cough who manages zine that, try as it might to be otherwise, is described as “embattled” and “beleamuch empathy for snooty geeks trying to hijack every conversation with his itself comes off as elitist. The magazine, guered” — a perfectly fair description of
even before the first issue is published, this lackluster endeavor.
ramblings.
to uphold unrealistic stanThe play tries to draw
dards of a precious enterprise.
power from the tension
The whole idea seems rather
THE COMMON
between highbrow ambiquaint, now that the Internet
PURSUIT
tions and baser urges. Perhas blown the old publishing
Laura Pels Theatre
model to smithereens.
Roundabout Theater Company haps years ago it was compelling that bookish types
The chief dilemma — Do we
111 W. 46th St.
Through Jul. 29
consume copious amounts
compromise our ideals to ramp
Tue.-Sat. at 7:30 p.m.
of liquor and are capable
up business? — has been done
Wed., Sat.-Sun. at 2 p.m.
to death on stage and elsewhere. $71-81; roundabouttheatre.org of animalistic sexcapades,
but not so much now (one
Scoring “major new poems” by
Or 212-719-1300
exception was the recently
a “major poet” is meant to be
closed “Seminar,” aided by
riveting stuff, but I didn’t care.
SAME-SEX MARRIAGES ($800) & DIVORCE ($995)
The guy on my left kept nodding off. Alan Rickman’s electrifying turn).
Not to mention that the play, set at
On my right, my theater companion, who
works in literary publishing, leaned over Cambridge, feels about as authentically
during intermission and whispered, “I have English as packaged English muffins.
The accents are all over the map.
one word for your review: rarified.”
That said, there are intermittent plea“The Common Pursuit” crew is a
hodgepodge of affable eccentrics, por- sures to be found. Playwright Simon
trayed with flair by a solid ensemble. Gray’s dialogue is often amusing. “SomeThe ringleader is Stuart (a bearded times I think I’m missing out on addicJosh Cooke, in an impressive New York tion,” the goody-two-shoes Martin says
stage debut), the idealistic editor who of his colleagues’ drinking and smoking
often puts the needs of the magazine and carousing.
Of a rival writer, Nick deadpans, “One
before those of his exceedingly alluring
girlfriend — later his wife — Marigold needs someone one hates meshed into
(Kristen Bush). The business manager, the texture of one’s life.”
A couple of pulpy plot twists were surMartin (Jacob Fishel), is a hardworking,
solitary type devoted to his dog. Peter prisingly affecting. The revelation of one
(Kieran Campion) is a married, shame- particular affair was something I certainless philanderer who uses Martin as an ly didn’t see coming.
Derek McLane’s evolving set of the
alibi to cover up his trysts.
Then there’s Humphry (Tim McGeev- magazine’s office, which suggests the
er), a haughty poet with a taste for find- passage of time while maintaining
ing love in public toilets. The most flam- a constant wall of books, is cleverly
boyant of the bunch is Nick (Lucas Near- designed.
“The Common Pursuit” is a play about
Verbrugghe, who strains to make the
role believable), a chain-smoker with an an elitist, intellectually rigorous maga-

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30

June 6, 2012 | www.gaycitynews.com

OPERA

Opera Abroad
MICHAEL COOPER, CANADIAN OPERA COMPANY

Toronto and Ghent
BY DAVID SHENGOLD
ince my last visit to fabulous, gay-friendly
Toronto, the Canadian Opera Company
moved into the spectacular, comfortable
Four Seasons Centre. Acoustics are certainly improved from its impossibly huge
former venue. Though both conductors I heard were
problematic — Andrew Davis overwhelming singers in
a Zemlinsky/ Puccini double bill (May 15) and Rinaldo
Alessandrini, delightful on recordings, sadly foursquare
in Handel’s “Semele” the following day — the orchestra
itself affirmed its fine quality.
The unifying idea behind Catherine Malfitano’s staging
of “Eine florentinische Tragödie” and “Gianni Schicchi”
was that both 1917 works are Florence-set. A single set
obtained — with 1920s trappings for Zemlinsky, more or
less current stuff for Puccini. Many details of set, dress,
and behavior contradicted this frame, notably the 1990s
style “power couple” photo of Simone (Alan Held) and
Bianca (Gun-Brit Barkmin) dominating their living room.
The Wilde-based moral (immoral?) tale is basically an
anecdote — a mercantile couple’s flagging lust rekindles
when the husband kills the wife’s princely lover Guido
Bardi (Michael Koenig). Malfitano had the singers either
clump about expressionistically or stand and glower; no
tension accumulated. After several hearings, I ascribe
that to the work, which surely works best in concert form.
At that, the orchestration is what impresses; only the final
couplet of lines offer memorable melodic contour.
Held fared best, animating the crafty old trader’s
utterances and (usually) making himself heard impressively over the storms Davis unleashed. Koenig delivered solidly. Barkmin, in Louise Brooks garb and bob,
sang with conviction but rather ordinary tones. Skulking about felinely and simulating orgasms every few
minutes, she seemed to channel Malfitano’s Salome
and Lulu characterizations simultaneously.
The diva-cum-director handled “Schicchi” better, where Held provided a very ingratiating star turn.
But TV-based “comic” attitudinizing was the directorial mode, with singers scampering around and singing
atop Wilson Chin’s set, a towering furniture pile. René
Barbera’s Rinuccio sounded very healthy indeed, and
Donato di Stefano (Simone, in classy casting) and studio member Philippe Sly (Notary) were outstanding.
“Semele” proved deeply frustrating in a manner
increasingly common. A director — here, Chinese art-

S

䉴

FESTIVAL, from p.24

and imported into Mexico. In
the 1980s, when the paper
was founded, the gover nment even controlled the
supply of paper for publications.
“Reportero” benefits from a
trove of Zeta’s own archival footage and photos, which feature
its founder, Jesús Blancornelas,
as well as his editors, many of
whom lost their lives covering
the drug cartels. Reporter Sergio Haro says that some stories
were so dangerous, “It was like
holding a grenade.” Sometimes,

Allyson McHardy and Jane Archibald in the Canadian Opera Company’s
production of Handel’s “Semele.”

ist Zhang Huan, an exhibit of whose impressive work
graced the Art Gallery of Ontario — undertakes a first
opera and responds to their own personal mythology,
not the work. Zhang’s main contribution to “Semele”
was the rebuilding of an ancient Chinese temple as its
set, with the overture accompanied by a mini-documentary film detailing the family and career problems of
those previously living there. After that, their story was
dropped. Various sorts of pan-Asian iconography and
devices appeared, a striking but strikingly misplaced
melismatic Chinese song trumped Act One’s rousing
finale, and — mystifyingly — two sumo wrestlers gruntingly battled through “Bless the glad earth.” A phallic
donkey cavorted unamusingly.
Evidently neither director nor conductor understood
English well enough to invest in William Congreve’s brilliant libretto — sexy, funny, and moving. The cast, quite
fine, seemingly fended for themselves — especially Jane
Archibald, an expert vocal technician ideally voiced for
Semele’s music, who looked right but miscalculated the
rapacious princess. She might as well have been playing the unselfish virgin Iphis in “Jephtha.”
William Burden’s handsome Jupiter was a paragon
of line and verbal articulation — an achievement given
Alessandrini’s unresponsiveness. Rather tight of production initially, he still sang much of his music exquisitely.
Mezzo Allyson McHardy had fun with the Ino/ Juno
pairing and sang everything but her last aria stylishly
and well. Katherine Whyte’s lively Iris contributed more
than Steven Humes (Cadmus/ Somnus), a fine bass but
no Handelian. Anthony Roth Costanzo moved heaven
and earth to maximize what was left him of Athamas’
part — a pity to hire such a stylish, expressive countertenor and cut his most effective arias. But then, this production cut the opera’s final chorus and replaced it with
the hummed “Internationale”. (You read that right.)
Still, any opera-loving visitor to Toronto should check
out COC’s offerings. Next May don’t miss Robert Cars-

no individual bylines are given,
to protect the writers. Writing
the stories that other media
outlets are afraid to cover comes
with a price. Some of the editors’
lives become a crowd of bodyguards and bullet-resistant cars.
But the truth is that "you cannot
interview someone if you bring
armed guards with you. You cannot run after a politician if you're
wearing a bulletproof vest."
“Reportero” shows us a journalism most American readers
could not possibly recognize

SILENCED VOICES
Directed by Beate Arnestad

In English, Swedish, and
Tamil with English subtitles
Jun. 25 at 9:15 p.m.; Jun. 26
at 4 p.m.; Jun. 27 at 7 p.m.
When 300 people are killed
in one day, it usually makes
news worldwide. And yet, in
Sri Lanka, when an estimated
390,000 Tamil minorities suddenly disappeared, how did
something that big escape critical attention? “Silenced Voices”
introduces us to several Sri
Lankan journalists living in exile
because they have persevered
to tell the truth behind their
government’s crushing of the
Tamils and a 28-year civil war.

en’s “Dialogues des Carmelites,” splendidly cast — Isabel Bayrakdarian, Judith Forst, Adrianne Pieczonka,
and Irina Mishura.
Belgium’s Flemish Opera has raised its artistic profile
dramatically recently, making its art-rich and LGBTfriendly home bases, Antwerp and Ghent, even more
attractive as destinations. Last season’s “Frau ohne
Schatten” proved as moving and beautiful as any starry
reading I’ve heard under Boehm, von Dohnanyi, or Thielemann. This year, Flemish Opera dove into local history,
presenting the illuminating world premiere of Donizetti’s
unfinished final opera in its original French version.
“Le duc d’Albe,” seen in Ghent’s intimate theater May
29, uses the Eugène Scribe libretto later refashioned
into “Les vêpres siciliennes” — the usual Verdian conflict of power versus personal happiness across two
generations. Here the setting is 1500s Flanders under
Spanish occupation. Composer Giorgio Battistelli, in
post-Bergian mode, completed the orchestration and
the 15 percent of the melodic line left undone by Donizetti. The stylistic alternation sometimes worked, but
nonetheless evoked the Berio-competed “Turandot” —
not enough humility obtained, and absent, also, was
any will to convey Scribe’s ambivalent ending, with
despair and hope — however misplaced — commingled.
Enough compelling music remains to make the score
fascinating. Venezuelan director Carlos Wagner used
Alfons Flores’ brutalist/ totalitarian set and projections
to make the milieu contemporary — any place of unjust
occupation. The overriding concept worked, though
blocking was awkward (those with fancy pool tables
don’t climb on them), the cast too often on the floor.
Crosses and Christ-parodic arm gestures appeared so
incessantly that they lost any evocative meaning.
George Petean’s fine, strong baritone and sinister
Mussolinian presence dominated as the blood-spilling
Duke. Once past some Act One pitch problems, Belgian
tenor Marc Laho, singing the conflicted Henri, savored
the text and — in legato passages — honored the lyrical legacy of Alain Vanzo, among his teachers. Rachel
Harnisch (the implacable Helene) offered a supermodel
physique, but proved vocally underpowered, with insufficient resonance below a clean, Mozartean top.
Of the others, Igor Bakan (Daniel) and Stephan
Adriens (Taverner) offered apt bel canto approaches.
Conductor Paolo Carignani started rather heavily but
overall provided sure guidance. Next season the rising Flemish Opera’s offerings include “Agrippina” and
“Parsifal” appealingly cast, plus Terry Gilliam’s “Damnation de Faust.”
David Shengold (shengold@yahoo.com) writes about
opera for many venues.

International observers were
ordered out, and film crews and
cameras were forbidden.
“I believe journalists can
save the world. Why else are we
here?” says Sonali Samarasinghe, the widow of Lasantha
Wickrematunge, a journalist
slain for opposing the Sri Lankan government.
While admitting nothing, even
a government official admits on
TV, “If you are not with us, you
are against us.” And, journalists
who oppose government policies or question why hundreds
of thousands of minorities vanished also disappear. It is easy for

people in the West to take freedom of the press for granted. The
Sri Lankans we meet are safe in
places like Berlin, Oslo, and New
York, but they aren’t happy. They
would rather be home.
Thanks to technology, these
journalists are able to view
images and videos of executions and abuses, taken on
smart phones and smuggled
out of the country, hidden in
the cloud computing that is
email. “Silenced Voices” presents some of the most difficult
imagery I’ve seen in my many

pen pals. Suzy sneaks out of her parents’ house, and
Sam escapes from the Scout camp. The two meet up
es Anderson managed to remake a on the island and share a romantic day, listening to
good deal of American cinema in his records and reading science fiction novels.
Khaki Scoutmaster Ward (Edward Norton) is infuriated
own image, although I’m sure that
was far from his intention. Of the by Sam’s escape and organizes the troop, along with local
generation of American filmmakers sheriff Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis), to search for the coucurrently in their 40s, only Quentin Tarantino can claim ple. Meanwhile, a hurricane is brewing off the island.
In its first 15 minutes, “Moonrise Kingthe same. David Fincher and Paul Thomas
dom”
shows off all the tools in Anderson’s
Anderson may be equally well-regarded,
MOONRISE KINGDOM
basket. It begins with a lengthy horizontal
but they don’t have a consistent style that
Directed by Wes Anderson
Focus Features
tracking shot, moving from left to right as
others can pin down and copy.
Regal Cinema Union Square
a group of Khaki Scouts listen to a record
1998’s “Rushmore” was Anderson’s
850 Broadway at 14th St.
deconstructing a Benjamin Britten comequivalent to “Pulp Fiction,” although
regmovies.com
position. These camera moves are someit didn’t make nearly as much money.
AMC Loews Lincoln Square
1998 Broadway at 68th St.
times interrupted by jerky vertical pans.
Released on DVD, it quickly found a cult
amctheatres.com
Then, Anderson cuts to an onscreen narfollowing for its stylized direction, choice
rator (Bob Balaban) with no connection to
use of ‘60s rock music, and humane
the other characters and the ability to see into the future.
approach to comedy.
Shooting in 16mm — though the film will probably
By the time Anderson released his follow-up, “The
Royal Tenenbaums,” imitators had emerged and detrac- be projected digitally at all its New York engagements
tors would accuse him of focusing on First World prob- — Anderson creates a somewhat unreal look. While
lems in a twee, quirky style. “The Life Aquatic With Steve the exteriors are fairly naturalistic, most of the interiors
Zissou” and “The Darjeeling Limited” suggested the nay- are marked by bright, candy-painted colors. Anderson
sayers had a point, but “Fantastic Mr. Fox” was an ani- is notorious for his micromanaged attention to detail,
and the production design in “Moonrise Kingdom” is no
mated masterpiece.
“Moonrise Kingdom” continues Anderson’s winning exception. It makes it very clear that the film takes place
in a fantasy world whose emotions are nevertheless quite
streak.
It takes place on an island off the coast of New Eng- genuine, even heightened.
“Moonrise Kingdom” is set in 1965, but its timing feels
land. Sam (Jared Gilman) is a wayward Khaki Scout.
A year before the main events of the film take place, he approximate and ambiguous. Perhaps only in a period
met Suzy (Kara Hayward), a 12-year-old girl appear- piece could Anderson get away with showing a 12-yearing in a play. The two instantly fell in love and became old smoking a pipe. (Smoking seems to be the main reason

W

䉴

FESTIVAL, from p.30

years of reviewing this festival’s offerings. The journalists examine horrible
scenes of executions and corpses and
are able to demonstrate just how and
why the nation’s military is pulling the
trigger.

LITTLE HEAVEN
Directed by Lieven Corthouts
In Amharic with English subtitles
Jun. 25 at 4 p.m.; Jun. 26 at 6:30
p.m.; Jun. 27 at 9 p.m.
In many underdeveloped countries,
orphans are not kids without parents —
they are children institutionalized when
parents or family cannot or will not provide care. In Ethiopia’s “Little Heaven,”
we meet Lydia, who is told on her 13th
birthday that she has HIV and is going
to another orphanage. The woman who
delivers the news seems very kind and
clearly feels horrible about this dreadful
birthday greeting.
We follow Lydia through her first year
at Little Heaven orphanage. She lives two
lives — one filled with friends and schoolwork, the other taken up with doctor’s
visits and medications. She was dealt an
unfair hand at birth, and now she’s been
set aside by her family. She oscillates

between a mantra of “I want to be happy
every day” and a despairing question
— “What does my future hold?” Lieven
Corthouts highlights Lydia’s isolation
by using long shots, showing her split
off from the other children. We also see
her vulnerability in extreme close ups.
Her face, tears rolling down her cheeks,
fills the screen when she is told she has
HIV. During a visit to the doctor, close
ups present just her face while the doctor talks about her condition.
It is the unscripted moments here
that paint the most evocative pictures.
A younger girl arranges her teddy bear
next to a portrait of Jesus. Another girl
says nothing makes her happy — “I just
want to sit or sleep.” Lydia says it best,
though: "Having HIV is like having someone live in your body without paying
rent."

INVISIBLE WAR
Directed by Kirby Dick
Jun. 18 at 8:45 p.m.; Jun. 20 at 6:30
p.m.
“Invisible War” chronicles a long history of sexual assault within the US military against its own ranks. A “zero tolerance” policy toward the abuses seems
to result in almost no investigations or
arrests. The amazing thing about this

the film is rated PG-13; all of its violence takes place offscreen.) Once again, Anderson shows off his eclectic taste
in music, mixing Britten, Hank Williams, and French yé yé
singer Françoise Hardy. Making Hardy the favorite singer of
one of his child characters is a bit of a leap, but maybe her
music was more popular in the US in 1965 than it is now. If
Anderson’s adults are childlike, his children are precocious.
The latter is essential for the film to make emotional sense.
Anderson rests on the edge between total absurdity
and complete sincerity. Fortunately, he lands on the latter. He gets fully committed performances from his child
actors, who get much more screen time than Willis, Norton, or Bill Murray, who plays Suzy’s father. The idea of
two 12-year-olds getting married may seem ridiculous,
but “Moonrise Kingdom” takes the passion of Sam and
Suzy very seriously. In fact, Peter Jackson’s “Heavenly
Creatures” is the only film I can think of that takes love
between two children or teenagers as seriously; like the
lovers of “Heavenly Creatures,” Sam and Suzy are willing
to resort to violence to stay together, although they don’t
go nearly as far.
Anderson is a Francophile, although the French
haven’t always loved him back — Cahiers du Cinéma
ran a grotesquely dismissive review of “Rushmore”
upon its release in France. His models for “Moonrise
Kingdom” seem French rather than American. Its deep
romanticism and depiction of Sam and Suzy as an outlaw couple on the run recall French New Wave films like
Jean-Luc Godard’s “Pierrot le fou,” while its tracking
shots go back further in French film history, to the work
of Max Ophüls. The Khaki Scouts may be all-American,
but the cross-cultural sensibility of “Moonrise Kingdom”
is a welcome one.

documentary is that all the statistics
come from government sources, and
almost everyone we see on camera is cur-

rently or has been in the military. “Invisible War” has a June 22 general release
date. Look for a full review by Steve

Evergreen Songwriter
Williams’ wit, bright Tony hopeful, dim Garland account
BY DAVID NOH
f any one person wrote the music
soundtrack of our lives in the
1970s, that would have to be Paul
Williams, composer of “Evergreen,”
“Rainy Days and Mondays,” “The
Rainbow Connection,” “Old-Fashioned Love
Song,” “Love Boat Theme,” that wedding
perennial “We’ve Only Just Begun,” etc.
He’s the subject of a marvelous documentary, “Paul Williams Still Alive”
(opens Jun.8, Angelika, 18 W. Houston
St. at Mercer St.; angelikafilmcenter.
com), directed by Stephen Kessler, a
fan who basically stalked him into submission and got his full story, from the
heady drug-fueled days of his jukebox
glory through recovery and now perfect
contentment as an artist still touring
and the dedicated president of the American Society of Composers, Authors and
Publishers, or ASCAP. Over breakfast at
the Park Lane Hotel, Williams, a brilliant
raconteur in that hip, crusty way true
musicians often show, regaled me in his
irresistibly inimitable style.
“It’s been a great surprise to me, the
way this film has been received,” he said.
“I’ve avoided writing my memoirs because
is there anything more disgusting than
some little old man saying, ‘Please, sir, may
I have some more fame?’ I wasn’t sure that
I wanted to deal with everything again,
because I love my life and have a great balance with my ASCAP work. But I’m really
glad I did it because it says a lot about
recovery, and is also really funny. It’s not
a traditional documentary at all, but about
the filmmaking process and the humor of
this stalker becoming a brother.”

I

ANITA AND STEVE SHEVETT

Reluctantly at first, Paul Williams allowed Stephen Kessler to have him look back at his life.

Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Tony nominee for “Ghost,” at the
May 24 New Dramatists lunch.

Williams started out as an actor, making his debut in the classic black comedy “The Loved One” at age 24: “In my
childhood, there was a movie that blew
me away that I watched with my mother when I was about 9, ‘With a Song in
My Heart.’ Remember, Susan Hayward
playing [singer] Jane Frohman? ‘Don’t
take her leg!’ [Laughs.] I remember her
singing to the troops and that was the
music I loved, the Great American Songbook, Crosby, ‘Moonlight Becomes You,’
‘Here’s That Rainy Day.’
“When I started writing songs, the
music I had loved as a kid became my
music school; the structure — two
verses, a bridge, and a chorus. Always
heavy-duty melody, and I write codependent anthems. My favorite love song
I ever wrote is ‘That’s Enough for Me,’
which had a line about how ‘our pleasure makes me cry’ and everybody was
like, ‘God, that’s so brave of you!’ and I
was like, ‘That’s part of me!’ I’m totally in
touch with my feminine side.
I told Williams that, because of his
androgynous image and outrageous wardrobe — as a USC college kid, I remember
seeing him at a movie premiere in a floorlength white fur coat — many assumed he
was gay: “Oh, yeah, I know. I loved trying
to be David Bowie. A lot of people thought I
was gay, except most gay men thought, ‘No,
he’s not very attractive.’ I got luckier with
the women [laughs]. I’ve never been with a
man, but I’m not dead yet…
“Oh, God, I finally get to talk about
this: you remember in 1977 [orange
juice pitchwoman] Anita Bryant had this
whole anti-gay campaign? I was in San
Francisco, and I took out an ad in Variety that said ‘Mr. and Mrs. Paul Williams,
in response to Anita Bryant’s campaign,
have stopped drinking dot dot dot.’
“The story got picked up by the Associated Press, so it went all around the

world. I’d go to my dressing room and
there’d be a stack of mail without return
addresses, and I knew what that was
going to be, and a few with addresses,
thanking me for the stand we took. To
this day, I will be standing on a set and
someone on the crew will say, ‘You know
what? The ad — thank you!’ but I’d never
gotten such hate mail in my life.”
Williams’ encounters with showbiz
legends alone could fill a book: “My manager called me, saying Mae West wants
to talk to you about writing the songs
for her movie, ‘Sextette.’ I went up to her
great apartment, Ravenswood, with this
kinda muscle guy she lived with. Everything was white, shag rug, and a copy of
Life magazine from the 1940s with her
on the cover, like time travel.
“After a while, she came out, fully
made up, in a flowing negligee, and she
must have been in her 80s then. She sat
down and there was not a lot of conversation, so, finally, her friend said, ‘You
know, Paul just wrote the songs for the
new version of “A Star is Born.”’ ‘Oh!,’
she said, ‘I love that one!’ and sang, ‘The
night is bitter…’
“I started to go, ‘No, it wasn’t…’ but
she gave me this look, and I stopped, and
to this day, I don’t know if she was putting me on. It will remain a mystery for
my entire life — I think she was, but how
hip to do that!
“When I did work on the ‘A Star is
Born,’ Streisand asked me, ‘What do you
need to write?’ Jokingly, I said, ‘White
wine and macadamia nuts at my fingertips,’ and the next time I was at her
house, they were at every table. I was
being fitted for a tuxedo when the phone
rang and my wife came in and said, ‘It’s
Barbra Streisand.’ I was like ‘Hi,’ and she
said, ‘You wrote a song called ‘You and
Me Against the World.’ There’s this place
at the end of the picture where I find this

song that [Kris Kristofferson’s character] was working on, and I wanted to talk
with you about writing that song,’ which
became ‘With One More Look at You.’
“She gave me this little melody [for
“Evergreen”], and I still have a tape of her
playing the guitar, looking for the chords,
and singing ‘Love dadadadeedada,’ and
I’m going, ‘I love it! It’s gorgeous!’ But I had
to write the other stuff first, and she kept
asking, ‘Where’s my love theme?’
“The first two lines I wrote were ‘Love,
fresh as the morning air/ Love, soft as
an easy chair’ and I called her and said,
‘You know what? It sings better if you
flip them. They’ll probably laugh us out
of town, but dig it [sings it]. ‘Morning’
sings better than ‘Easy’ there. ‘Yeah,’ she
said, ‘That’s cool. Bye!’
“‘With One More Look at You’ is one of
my favorite songs, an homage to the 1954
version when James Mason would say to
Judy Garland, ‘Hold on. I just want to take
another look.’ I had the verse on a napkin
with three lines underlined when I sang it to
her, and, after she heard it, she said those
exact three lines could have been better.
Like a heat-seeking missile, she knew what
worked for her, she knows music.
“She gave me a chance to do something that reflected amazingly on my children’s lives, and I don’t think I ever really
thanked her as I should have. I was too
busy being cool, but she’s a spectacular talent and I love that she always puts
‘Evergreen’ on every album, love it when
another version comes out.”
“The great thing about my career is
I caught the third act of Crosby, Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Ella, and Torme, who
recorded my songs, and today I’m president of ASCAP and can fight for these kids
to make sure they can make a living with
their music. I wrote songs for the movie
‘Bugsy Malone’ in the styling of Ella and
Torme and later on, they both recorded
them. You don’t get luckier than that.”
I told Williams that the star of ‘Bugsy,’
Jodie Foster, was, in those days, a dead
ringer for him: “We were interchangeable.
She was a little more butch than me, but
other than that… Now I look like a cross
between Hayley Mills and Jo Stafford,
with a dash of Skip E. Lowe.”

If you’d dropped a bomb
on the Marriott Marquis on May 24,
the entire Broadway season would
have been wiped out as almost every
actor on the boards right now was
there for the New Dramatists lunch
honoring Bernadette Peters. Peters
was there, amazingly ageless as ever,
with curls and “girls” (in her ubiquitous low décolletage) on display,

䉴

IN THE NOH, continued on p.33

33

| June 6, 2012

䉴

LOISEAU, from p.28

added to his self-loathing. Photos of him from that time show
he was an extremely attractive,
long-haired, and willowy blonde
boy whose androgynous looks
earned him the nickname “ma feé”
(my fairy, which in French is not a
pejorative) from the aging closeted
fashion queen who was the St.
Laurent boutique’s manager.
One day Perkins, in town
to make “Quelqu’un derriere la
porte” (“Someone Behind the
Door”) for the Franco-Hungarian
director Nicolas Gessner, came in
to buy pants needed for the film.
It was Patrick who waited on him,
taking his measurements
and kneeling to pin the
garments to be tailored.
As Perkins left, he said,
“By the way, your name
is Patrick, isn’t it? I’m
Tony!,” and with a flashed
smile and wave of a hand
was out the door.
To Patrick’s astonishment, the day after the
clothes were delivered to
Perkins’ hotel, the store
manager got a phone call complaining the pants didn’t fit. But
when Perkins showed up and the
pants were once again put on him,
he pronounced them “perfect after
all” and, to excuse himself for the
unnecessary disturbance, asked
Patrick to choose some shirts and
sweaters for him. He also slipped a
piece of paper into Patrick’s hand
and whispered, “I hope I didn’t
get you into any trouble, but I just
had to see you again.” The paper
contained just the name Tony —
with his phone number.
After agonizing for two days
about whether to call the capti-

vatingly handsome 38-year-old
star, Patrick worked up his courage and dialed the number. It
turned out to be that of a luxuriously appointed apartment Perkins had borrowed from a friend,
to which Patrick was immediately
invited for dinner. Thinking himself unworthy of such attentions,
Patrick was discombobulated
when, in time, Perkins cupped
the boy’s head in his hand and,
intoning the words “Patrick, you’re
sooooo sexy!,” kissed him long and
deeply, the first man to ever have
done so. Perkins began slowly
undressing the trembling youth,
who quickly began to help him do
so — and they made love. Nearly

“Dear Patrick,
“I know that you must be asking yourself WHY I haven’t written, but when I explain I’m sure
you’ll understand.
“Because you’re too intelligent to be just a salesperson in a
boutique, and if you only had the
mentality, the sensibility, and the
capacities of a sales clerk, you and
I would never have gotten together. So, why haven’t I written?
“Because I was waiting to get a
letter from you — your inevitable
letter of disillusion, which would
say, ‘Okay, I want just to let you
know that my eyes have finally
been opened. I see clearly now
that you never had any real feeling for me, and
that I was only
an occasional
nothing that
you couldn’t
forget quickly enough.
Thanks anyway
— I want you
just to understand that ‘I
DON’T THINK
I NEED YOU
ANY MORE!’ But I’ve not as yet
had such a letter from you.
“However, even if you’ve only
THOUGHT of writing me a letter
like that, that’s good enough for
me. All that is a long and complicated way for me to tell you that
you must know that you don’t
really ‘need’ me, as you’ve said in
each of your letters — that makes
no sense! You live in France and
I live in America, and that’s not
going to change any time soon.
And when you wrote me that you
refused all New Year’s Eve invitations to stay alone at home and
think of me, that makes me sad

“Do you think I find you
attractive because you’re
feeble, dependant, and adolescent?
You’re better than that.”

䉴

every night for the next ten weeks,
they arranged to get together, and
when the time arrived for Perkins
to go to London for additional filming, he promised to be back in a
few weeks to dub the French version of the movie.
Sadly for Patrick, one day he got
a call from Perkins, who told him
he was returning to New York and
to write him. Patrick was, by this
time, deeply in love for the very
first time, and fell into a profound
depression, eventually sending
Perkins three plaintive letters telling him how destroyed he felt.
Finally he received a reply.

IN THE NOH, from p.32

receiving glowing tributes, including
one from Elaine Stritch, whose memory failed her at the beginning of an
anecdote, and after she looked to her
accompanist for help, said, “I asked for
a prompt and got, ‘You’re doing good!’”
I asked Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Tony
nominee for “Ghost” and so deserving
for the bighearted brashness and joyful
musicality she brings, if she felt as completely at home and comfortable onstage
as she seems.
“Yes, I love it!,” she responded.
“Stepping into the shoes of Whoopi
Goldberg [who originated her role in
the movie] was amazing, but I didn’t
get bogged down in what she did. She
got nominated for a reason — she’s
fabulous, obviously. But, like anything else, if you want to do Shakespeare, what does the text tell you

about your interpretation? You do the
work, and I knew that would be the
biggest downfall if I tried to recreate
what Whoopi did because it’s a musical for a reason. It’s not ‘Ghost Part
2,’ you know.
“I started singing in church and am
a classically trained opera singer. I was
home, in bed, when I heard about my
Tony nomination. I’d asked my assistant to call me if something happened
and she did that morning, and it’s
amazing, fabulous, thrilling, and I’m
taking the ride as it comes.
“I have so many influences — Aretha,
Whitney, Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour
Hoffman, the list goes on and on. It’s
great to be an artist in this generation
where we have so many wonderful artists to look up to. I feel very solidified to
have this great library of research. When
I was younger, I would watch Turner
Classic Movies, tons of old movies with

— because it doesn’t correspond
to the image I have of you at your
best: INDEPENDENT, STRONG,
AND ADULT. Do you think I find
you attractive because you’re feeble, dependant, and adolescent?
You’re better than that, and you
mustn’t miss me — even though
it would be awfully easy for me to
miss you. I think about you too,
but hoping that I’ll be in Paris
again soon — and you’re the first
person I’ll call (from the airport!).
“Thanks for the gift. That scarf:
the only thing I can say is that
each time I throw it around my
shoulders I think of you, and I
will never, ever lose it.
“Have you understood this letter? Will you write me soon?
“Affectionately,
“Tony.”
It took a few more months
for Patrick to more or less heal,
at least enough to allow himself
to be persuaded to join a young
female friend in an outing to a
crowded and smoke-filled night
club in the Latin Quarter, where
a handsome young beatnik singer from Holland was eking out
a meager living by singing and
playing the guitar, then passing
his hat to collect tips from the
customers. When he came by
the table where Patrick and the
girl were sitting to collect his tip,
he gave the young blonde boy
a ravishing smile — and then,
some minutes later, having finished amassing all the francs he
could, came back to their table,
put his arm around Patrick, and
asked, “Do you like boys? My
name’s Dave.” They have now
been together more than 40
years.
Irony of ironies, it was his brief
affair with the self-hating Ameri-

my grandmother — Greta Garbo, all
that stuff I grew up with.
“Dream role? At the beginning, I
wanted to play Rafiki [in “The Lion
King”] so bad, but now I would love to
do a biopic of Sarah Vaughan or Ella
Fitzgerald, whatever is open.”

“Ghost” was lambasted
by the critics but, far more
mysteriously, “End of the Rainbow”
was praised to the skies, and Tracie
Bennett seems a sure bet for Tony’s
Best Actress. While she’s undoubtedly
energetic and fearless (but completely
clueless as to the correct gestures
to use while singing), the show is a
steaming pile of ordure, an incredibly
vulgar and witless desecration of the
last days of Judy Garland’s life.
I started to seethe near the very
beginning, when “Judy” falsely recalled
going to classes at MGM with Deanna

can movie star that gave the selfhating French boy enough of a
sense of self-worth to be able to
accept and return the affection
that Dave soon showered upon
him. If he’d been used as a sexual
Kleenex by Tony, at least he’d been
used elegantly and charmingly.
Tony and Patrick would not see
each other for another five years,
when Patrick and Dave were on
a visit to New York to meet with
the execs at CBS Records, where
Dave was then under contract.
On a chance impulse, Patrick
dialed an old New York phone
number given to him by Perkins,
who was then on Broadway starring in “Equus.” The French
couple found it impossible to get
tickets to the sold-old hit before
their scheduled departure, but
when Berry Berenson answered
the phone she exclaimed, “You’re
Patrick from Paris? Tony will
be so happy to see you. There’ll
be two tickets for you and your
friend waiting at the theater box
office tonight, and I’ll leave word
for you to be admitted back stage
to his dressing room.”
After the play, Patrick and
Dave did indeed go back stage,
but instead of knocking on
Perkins’ dressing room door,
they diffidently decided to wait
for him to come out. When he
did, he was wearing the scarf
Patrick had given him all those
years before… and in the background lurked another young
blonde boy who did not look
unlike Patrick. Still, the smile
on Perkins’ face on seeing Patrick Loiseau and meeting his
lover Dave was broad and genuine. Perkins’ letter of rupture
had achieved some effect on the
young Frenchman after all.

Durbin and Elizabeth Taylor (who would
have been about four at the time), and
then had to watch her click her heels with
groaning obviousness at any mention
of travel, rut around stage like a dog in
heat, and shriek “Suck my cock!” in
some insanely ludicrous approximation
of the star’s legendary wit.
It was frankly horrendous, not helped
at all by the queasy, depressingly retro
portrait of a homosexual assistant
(Michael Cumpsty) or the nasty
depiction Garland’s last (ineptly acted)
husband, Mickey Deans, as a hustling
drug enabler. It was all enough to
make me want to demand that all
involved be flogged — or at least turn
in their gay cards immediately for such
shameful shamelessness.
Contact David Noh at Inthenoh@
aol.com and check out his new blog at
nohway.wordpress.com.

34
䉴

PROP 8, from p.9

Romer v. Evans, the US Supreme
Court's 1996 decision that struck
down Colorado’s Amendment 2, a
referendum rescinding the right of
gay people there to seek any nondiscrimination protections. The
Ninth Circuit concluded, as had the
Supreme Court in Romer, that there
was no rational, non-discriminatory
reason for doing so.
In narrowing the case's scope
in this way — by making its decision tur n heavily on Walker's factual findings about the nature of
the campaign to pass Prop 8 — the
three-judge panel made it less likely that the Supreme Court would be
interested in hearing the case.
Boies and Olson offered somewhat different takes on the prospects for the high
court stepping into the Prop 8 case.
“ We s u s p e c t t h e y w i l l t a k e t h e
case,” Olson said.
Noting the May 31 ruling from a
First Circuit appeals panel (see page

䉴

June 6, 2012 | www.gaycitynews.com
16) af fir ming a decision striking
down the Defense of Marriage Act
(DOMA), Boies offered a more cautious response, saying, “I think it
is probably likely that the court will
take one or both of the cases.” He
added, “I don’t have a view of whether they will likely take this case.”
He said if the Supreme Court was
predisposed to view the Prop 8 case on
the narrower grounds laid out by the
appeals panel in February, “that might
be a factor increasing the chances they
would not take the case.”
It is very likely the high court will
be considering the DOMA case in its
next term, since the Bipartisan Legal
Advisory Group (BLAG) of the US
House of Representatives, a group
controlled by Speaker John Boehner
that began defending the 1996 law
when the Justice Department decided last year it would no longer do so,
is expected to file an appeal of the
May 31 decision. That ruling held
that DOMA’s Section 3, which bars
federal recognition of valid same-

RAVI, from p.6

But I don’t believe it was hate-motivated.” He
added, “I can’t find it in me to remand this gentleman to a state prison that houses such people
convicted of murder, robbery, and rape.”
At the sentencing hearing nine days
earlier, however, the judge was scathing
in his comments about Ravi. “I haven’t
heard you apologize once,” he said. Ber man noted that Ravi’s pre-sentencing letter also failed to acknowledge the seven
charges related to his cover -up for which
he was convicted.
Stating that the witness best able to
describe Ravi’s behavior was dead, the judge
pointed out that Clementi had called the
defendant’s behavior “wildly inappropriate.” Berman
did not allow the jury to hear those words, but said
he could not put them out of his own mind in coming to a decision on sentencing.

sex marriages, is unconstitutional
under the Fifth Amendment's equal
protection requirement. The First
Circuit found no justification for the
federal government distinguishing
between same-sex and different-sex
marriages that are valid under state
law, but did not rule on the underlying question about a constitutional
right to marry.
The Supreme Court is expected to
grant review in the DOMA case, since
otherwise the federal gover nment
would be in the untenable position
of recognizing same-sex marriages
in the First Circuit — comprised of
Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Puerto Rico
— but nowhere else.
It seems less likely the Supreme
Court would be interested in reviewing the Prop 8 case, given its narrower scope and application to just one
state. If the Court did grant review,
it would be free to reframe the question more broadly to focus on whether same-sex couples have a right to

The judge focused a good deal of attention on
the steps Ravi took to evade law enforcement,
describing that effort as “anything but isolated
and spontaneous… This was a cold, calculated,
and methodically conceived” plan.
During the trial, there was testimony that the

Tyler’s brother, James. Some readers
responded with condemnations of Ravi.
Between the end of his trial and
his sentencing, Ravi embarked on an
effort to burnish his image, which
included his interview on “20/ 20”
and relied on mainstream press stories that cited gay voices calling for
a more considered reaction.
“I do feel queasy about the way
he has used an editorial like mine
to reinforce his position,” Hicklin
told Gay City News. “This isn’t about
exonerating Ravi at all. It’s about a
temperate response to something
that we in the LGBT community
know is widespread.”
Like Hicklin, others were motivated to speak out by the community’s

videotaping captured images of Clementi kissing
another man, identified only as M.B., who is now
32. Prosecutors introduced evidence that on 38
occasions in the days before his suicide, Clemen-

demand for what they believed was
revenge. Others were philosophically
opposed to hate crime laws, which
were used in the Ravi case.
Wi l l i a m D o b b s , a l o n g t i m e g a y
activist, was critical of Ravi’s prosecution because it was “way over charged.” He has long pressed an
effort to get the community to dial
back its demands for punishment
in criminal cases with LGBT victims. “For decades, we gays have
had to push the criminal justice
system into action, but that kind of
pressure can also cause a miscar riage of justice,” said Dobbs, who
carried a sign reading “Justice Not
Vengeance” at a 2010 vigil on the
Rutgers campus where Clementi
and Ravi were students.
The LGBT community once fre-

marry, or it could practice judicial
restraint and limit itself to determining whether the Ninth Circuit panel
correctly applied the reasoning of
Romer v. Evans to find that Prop 8's
rescission of rights was invalid.
Olson, after saying AFER will
oppose the Proponents’ effort to
appeal the Ninth Circuit ruling —
since its clients would enjoy an
“absolute victory” if it stands — said
he and the other attorneys “will not
avoid a full ventilation of this issue.”
Their arguments, he said, will
address the broad issue of denying
gay couples the fundamental right
to marry and the narrower question
of California voters choosing to take
away a right earlier judged fundamental under the State Constitution.
Referring to a potential Supreme
Court ruling by June 2013, Olson
boldly predicted, “We believe that
will vindicate the rights of gay and
lesbian people to marriage equality
in the United States.” — Additional
reporting by Paul Schindler

ti went online to look at a Ravi tweet saying he’d
viewed his roommate “making out with a dude.”
The prosecutor also charged that Ravi deleted
a Twitter post alerting others to a September 21
encounter between the two gay men, replacing it
“with a false post on Twitter intended to mislead
the investigation.” Evidence was presented showing that the defendant provided false information
to investigators and attempted to persuade witnesses not to testify against him.
A star violin player from Ridgewood, New Jer sey, Clementi was described, at the time of his
suicide, as a shy young man who had only recently come out to his parents.
In his sentencing, Ber man emphasized that
Ravi was not convicted of contributing to Clementi’s death. He also said he would recommend
that the defendant, an immigrant from India, not
be deported, though he added that a final decision on that was not his, but rather to be made
by federal immigration authorities.

quently battled law enforcement,
when it raided gay bars or arrested
community members on sodomy
charges. Dobbs points to the silence
on another case in which a Rutgers
student groped and filmed his sleeping roommate. That silence shows
the community’s current lopsided
approach to crime, he said. That
student pleaded guilty to invasion of
privacy and criminal sexual contact
earlier this year. He will serve a year
in jail, be on probation for life, and is
required to register as a sex offender.
“These are very, very serious
charges to be bringing against college students,” Dobbs said. “Both of
these cases, they might have been
university disciplinary matters.
Instead, we are now using serious
penalties against them.”

E. J. Graff, a contributing editor
at the American Prospect, a progressive journal, saw a community that
seized on the Clementi case as one
that represented all the earlier suicides. “This was a pretty easy symbolic case for something we’d been
having a national discussion about,”
Graff wrote in an email. “Some cases
become big because they stand for
something we’re talking about.”
In many, if not all, of those ear lier suicides, no one was charged
with any crime. In Ravi, the community found a defendant it could
hold responsible for the death, she
argued. “This was not manslaughter
and trying it as though it was manslaughter was oversimplifying a very
complicated discussion and I think
the judge got that,” Graff wrote.

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audiences. ($20). On Jun. 11, 8 p.m., at the Abrons
Art Center Underground, Biljana Kosmogina presents
“‘P’ Campaign,” a provocative political parody about the
presidential candidacy of “Vagina” (popularly known as
Pika), who believes she can save Serbia. On Jun. 11,
10 p.m., at the Abrons Art Center Experimental,
Željko Zorica presents “KroaTisch-Amerikanische
Freundschaft,” an audio/ video/ edible installation
organized and presented alongside a controlled
happening, in which the artist offers gastronomic
pleasures to the audience. ($10) On Jun, 12–14, 8
p.m., at the Abrons Art Center Experimental, Silvia
Costa / Plumes dans la tête presents “La Quiescenza del
Seme,” a live installation that focuses on the preparation
and waiting that charges the moments before every
birth with physiological and ideological meaning. ($20)
On Jun, 12–14, 8 p.m., at the Abrons Arts Center
Gallery, Igor Josifov presents “2-Dimensional,”
a performance installation exploring the delicate
relationship between the artist and the viewer, with
Josifov, lying underneath a plexiglass structure, inviting
the audience to walk over him. (Free) On Jun. 14-15, 8
& 9 p.m., at the Invisible Dog, 51 Bergen St., btwn.
Smith St. & Boerum Pl., Brooklyn, dancers François
Chaignaud and Cecilia Bengolea present “Paquerette,”
which moves beyond the idea of penetration as a form
of interaction or source of sexual pleasure to explore it
in imposing new restrictions and liberties on the body.
Tickets and complete information at queerny.org.

Out gay cityscape painter and muralist
Michael Steinbrick, who studied at the Constantijn Huygens Academie in Kampen, the Netherlands, and earned his BFA from Montclair State
University, is joined by photographer and mixed
media artist Tony Zaza and painter Victoria Hanks
in the inaugural exhibition at Victoria Hanks
Fine Art, 202 Bellevue Ave. at Northview Ave.,
Suite 2, Montclair, NJ. The opening reception
is Jun. 7, 5-8 p.m. Exhibition runs through Jun.
30. More information at victoriahanksfineart.com.

MUSIC
My Big, Fat, Gay Wedding
Reception
The Stonewall Chorale celebrates its 35th anniversary as the nation's first LGBT choir, Cynthia Powell's
10th season as artistic director, and the one-year anniversary of marriage equality in New York. The evening’s
program includes the New York premiere of Meredith
Monk's “Wedding March,” as well as some of the chorus’ favorite wedding reception tunes. It promises to be
a big, fat gay party. Church of the Holy Apostles, 296

Queer New York International Arts Festival
(QNYI) is a new contemporary performance and visual
art series — co-curated by Zvonimir Dobrovi, artistic
director of Queer Zagreb and the Perforations Festival
in Croatia, and art historian and curator André von Ah
— that explores and broadens the concept of “queer
(in) art.” At the Impossible Project Gallery, 425
Broadway, btwn. Canal & Howard Sts., fifth fl.,
beginning Jun. 7, 6 p.m. and running through Jun.
16, the East Village Boys, in “For personal use,” bring
together artists including Mx Justin Vivian Bond, Jeff
Hahn, Jayson Keeling, Josh McNey, Christian Schoeler,
and Andrew Yang to photograph whatever it is they do in
private for, with, or to themselves. On Jun. 7-8, 8 p.m.,
at the Abrons Art Center Playhouse, at 466 Grand
St. at Pitt St., Stefano Ricci and Gianni Forte, l’enfants
terribles of the Italian theater scene, present their
acclaimed work “Macadamia Nut Brittle,” a play based
on text by Dennis Cooper that frames four performers
in a desperate waiting game in an impossible world for
those seeking love. ($20). On Jun. 7 & 10, 9:30 p.m.,
at the Abrons Arts Center Underground Theater,
Tadasu Takamine presents his controversial video/
performance installation “Kimura-San,” a documentary
chronicling his care, over a five-year period, of Mr.
Kimura, who was a victim of the Morinaga arsenic milk
poisoning and lost complete use of his arms, legs, and
mouth. Takamine’s caregiving included aiding in the
satisfaction of Kimura’s sexual needs. ($10). On Jun.
9-10, 8 p.m., at the Abrons Art Center Playhouse,
David Wampach presents “Auto + Batterie,” which
exposes and exploits the relationship between dance
and music, which too often, according to the artist, gets
left on automatic pilot. ($20). On Jun. 11, 8 p.m., at the
Abrons Art Center Playhouse, Marlene Monteiro
Freitas presents “Guintche,” a one-woman performance
piece based on one of her drawings. The title character
has been called “demented” and “indomitable” by

THEATER
Lost in Small Space
Braeson Herold stars “Hot Steams,” a futuristic mental
ride through torture and imprisonment in which the protagonist finds himself jailed and dressed in a Santa suit with
no memory of who he is or how he got there. His cellmate
(Zach Wegner), a questionably accused mass murderer, is
supposed to be in solitary confinement. Their sanity is at
stake as they face an unscrupulous law enforcer (Timothy
Weinert). Performances benefit the Innocence Project
(innocenceproject.org), which seeks to exonerate innocent
prisoners through the use of DNA evidence. Jaclyn Biskup
directs. Theaters at 45 Bleecker, Bleecker St. at
Lafayette St. Jun. 7, 8:30 p.m.; Jun. 9 & 19, 10 p.m.;
Jun. 12, 9:30 p.m.; Jun. 21, 7 p.m. Tickets are $18 at planetconnections.org/hot-steams.

BENEFIT
Reigniting the AIDS Fight
AIDS Service Center NYC (ascnyc.org), a nonprofit organization that helps HIV-positive New
Yorkers and those at risk get a second chance to
take charge of their health and reclaim their lives,
hosts its annual spring benefit, “HEAT — Reigniting
the Fight Against AIDS.” The evening includes an
open bar, a showcase of condom fashion, hot music,
dancers, and appearances by actress Lilli Taylor, sex
columnist Savanna Sampson, and star radio DJ Vic
Latino. The Griffin, 50 Gansevoort St. at Ninth
Ave. Jun. 7, 6:30-10:30 p.m. Tickets are $75; $150
for VIP entry at heatnyc.org.

FRI.JUN.8

DANCE
New from Nicholas
Leichter

In the world premiere of “Twenty Twenty,” which
Dance Magazine has called “a scorching, irrepressibly
sexy duet,” choreographer Nicholas Leichter and his
protégé Bryan Strimpel explore the dynamics of age,
race, sexuality, and performance personae. The work
revels in the similarities and differences between
these two charismatic performers, and uses a mix-tape
soundtrack to express a range of cultural memes about
identity, presence, and the Other. Joe's Pub, inside
the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St., btwn. E.
Fourth St. & Astor Pl. Jun. 8-9, 7 p.m. Tickets are
$15 at joespub.com or 212-967-7555; $20 at the door.
Doors open at 6 for pre-show cocktails or dinner.

MUSIC
She Carries Her Own Mic
Jane Krakowski has a knack for scene-stealing
roles, whether as Carla in the revival of “Nine,” for
which she won Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critic
Circle Awards, or as Jenna Maroney on NBC’s “30
Rock,” where she’s earned three Emmy nominations
even while competing with scenery chewers Tina Fey,
Alec Baldwin, and Tracy Morgan. Tonight, she’s at
Town Hall, 123 W. 43rd St. Jun. 8, 8 p.m. Tickets
are $45-$55 at the-townhall-nyc.org or 212-840-2824.

LGBT Pride Day kicks off in Brooklyn with a
5k run, beginning at 9 a.m., Jun. 9, at Bartel
Pritchard Circle, Prospect Park W. at 15th St.,
Park Slope. Registration begins at 8, and half of
the $25 fee supports the LGBT youth programs at
the Brooklyn Community Pride Center. The annual
multicultural festival, with stage entertainment,
runs from noon-6 p.m., near Prospect Park
W. & Ninth St., with a Kids Space open from
noon-4 p.m. The Night Parade kicks off from Fifth
Ave. at 14th St. in the Slope and proceeds
north to Sterling Pl. Gay Men of African Descent
hosts an after-pare open mic youth event at 9 p.m.
at 44 Court St. at Joralemon St. in Brooklyn
Heights. For complete information on the day,
visit brooklynpride.org.

Chillfest, the LGBT-themed film series, presents a
special gay pride screening of “Vito,” Jeffrey Schwarz's
bio-doc on the late Vito Russo, a leading gay activist,
film scholar, and author of "The Celluloid Closet." Via
interviews, rare clips, and miles of archival footage (with
Russo always at the forefront of gay crowds), Schwarz
makes his subject a dramatic focal point in the history
of gay rights from Stonewall riots to AIDS. LITM, 140
Newark Ave., half block from Grove St. PATH station, Jersey City. Jun. 10, 4 p.m. Drinks and light bites
begin at 6. Tickets are $7 at chillfest.org; $10 at the door.

GALLERY
Early Haring in Brooklyn
“Keith Haring: 1978-1982” is the first large-scale
exhibition to explore the early career of the legendary pop artist, who died of AIDS in 1990. The exhibit
traces the development of the artist's extraordinary
visual vocabulary and including 155 works on paper,
seven experimental videos, and more than 150 archival objects, among them rarely seen sketchbooks,
journals, exhibition flyers, posters, subway drawings,
and documentary photographs. Brooklyn Museum
of Art, 200 Eastern Pkwy (2, 3 to Eastern Parkway) near Grand Army Plaza. Through Jul. 8,
Wed., Fri.-Sun., 11 a.m.-6 p.m.; Thu., 11 a.m.-10
p.m.; first Sat., 11 a.m.-11 p.m.

MON.JUN.11

THEATER
Some Things Never
Change

PRIDE
Whoopi at Cooper Union

THU.JUN.14

THEATER
Will He Obey?
Theatre at St. Clement's hosts a semi-staged
reading of Tony Adams' play, "A Letter From The
Bishop," about the friendship shared by three gay
priests and how they react to their bishop's demand
that all his priests read a letter directing Catholics
to vote against same-sex marriage. One of the three
objects to the demand, which alters his friendship
with the other two and leads to a confrontation with
the bishop. The question "Will he or won't he read the
letter?" is revealed in the final scene. 423 W. 46th St.,
7 p.m. Admission is free, but reservations strongly
recommended at aletterfromthebishop.blogspot.com.

“Activist New York” is a Museum of the City
of New York exhibition that examines how New
Yorkers have advocated, agitated, and exercised
their power to shape the city’s — and the nation’s
— future. Among the installations examining 14
different movements over the past 350 years is
“‘Gay Is Good’: Civil Rights for Gays and Lesbians,
1969-2012,” which draws on artifacts from groups
ranging from ACT UP and Radicalesbians to the
Human Rights Campaign and the Gay Men’s Health
Crisis and borrows from collections at the New
York Public Library and the Fales Library at NYU.
1220 Fifth Ave. at 103rd St. Daily, 10 a.m.-6
p.m. The exhibition has an open run. Admission is $10; $6 for students & seniors. For more
information, visit mcny.org.

THEATER
It’s Loekle Just to Be
Nominated

the out gay creator of powerhouse franchises such as
“Top Chef” and “The Real Housewives” whose new
book is “Most Talkative: Stories from the Front Lines of
Pop Culture.” Bryant Park Reading Room, the 42nd
Street side of the park under the burgundy and
white umbrellas. Jun. 13, 12:30-1.45 p.m. The rain
venue is Library of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, 20 W. 44th St.

PRIDE
Scott Stringer
Celebrates

NYC’s Social Activist
Tradition

Litter, a queer reading series, welcomes author
Michael Cunningham, who won both the Pulitzer
and PEN/ Faulkner Awards for “The Hours” and will read
from a novel in progress, and CA Conrad, who will read
from his recently published book of poems, “A Beautiful
Marsupial Afternoon — New (Soma)tics.” Phoenix
Bar, 447 E. 13th St., near Ave. A. Jun. 10, 7 p.m.

p.m., Tod Ensign, director of Citizen Soldier, a GI and veterans rights advocacy group founded in the Vietnam era,
and Kimber Heinz, a member of the advisory board of the
Bradley Manning Support Network advisory board and
national organizing coordinator with the War Resisters
League, discuss the history of GI activism and resistance.
On Jun. 25, 7:30 p.m., the forum will examine information on what is known about recent US military engagement as the result of whistleblower activities. 451 West
St., btwn. Bank & Bethune Sts. Admission is on a
sliding scale from $6-$15.

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS/ DAVID SHANKBONE

䉴

As part of a month of LGBT Pride Month events at
the New York Public Library system, the Tompkins
Square Library presents “I Love You, Now Marry
Me,” with Psychology Today and GO Magazine contributor Dr. Darcy Smith Sterling speaking about how to
know when it’s the right time to marry, what to prepare
for, and how to make it last after the honeymoon. 331
East 10th St., near Ave. B. Jun. 11, 5 p.m.
In a later installment of the same theme, on Jun.
20, 5:30 p.m., at the Mulberry Street Library, Charlie The Matchmaker, who blogs on the Huffington
Post, offers his take. 10 Jersey St., btwn. Lafayette
& Mulberry Sts.

POLITICS
The Implications of
Bradley Manning
The Brecht Forum, a social justice educational
center, hosts a series of discussions about the issues
raised by the case of Bradley Manning, a gay soldier
arrested in 2010 in Iraq on suspicion of passing secrets
to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. On Jun. 11,
7:30 p.m., a panel including Alfredo Lopez of May First/
People Link, who is active in the open source online
movement, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, a member of the Icelandic
Parliament, and Trevor Timm, a blogger at the Electronic
Frontier Foundation, will discuss advances and defeats
in this battle for press freedom online. On Jun. 11, 7:30

Whoopi Goldberg emcees the City Council’s
celebration of Pride Month, hosted by Speaker Christine
Quinn and Councilmembers Rosie Mendez, Daniel
Dromm, and Jimmy Van Bramer. In a nod to an iconic
Goldberg film role, the event includes a live performance by the Broadway cast of the musical “Sister
Act.” The celebration honors Dee Rees, director of the
Sundance Film Festival award-winning film “Pariah,”
the gripping story of an African-American teenage lesbian struggling to come into her own growing up in Fort
Greene; the NYPD’s LGBT Advisory Panel; and Hermes
Mallea and Carey Maloney, leaders of LGBT @ NYPL,
for their work to expand the number of LGBT books in
the New York Public Library system. The Great Hall
at Cooper Union, 7 E. Seventh St., btwn. Third &
Fourth Aves. Jun. 12, 5:30 p.m. (doors open at 4:45).
RSVP to council.nyc.gov/events or 212-442-1649.

MUSIC
The Queerness of
Whitman & the Beats
New Music New York presents “I Sing the Body
Electric,” newly created chamber ensemble works for
voices and instruments inspired by the texts of Walt
Whitman and his long-acknowledged poetic progeny,
the American Beat Generation of the 1950s and ‘60s.
The concert celebrates the queer spirit of Whitman and
the Beats (Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the San Francisco
bookstore owner tried for obscenity for selling Allen
Ginsberg’s “Howl,” having said the Beat poets were at
least half-gay). Saint Peter's Church @ Citicorp, 54th
St. & Lexington Ave. Jun. 12, 8 p.m. Admission is $20.
More information at nmnybodyelectric.eventbrite.com.

Lavender Light: The Black and People of All Colors
Lesbian and Gay Gospel Choir presents “Rejoice,” the
choir’s annual Pride concert that is an evening full of
praise. In its 27th year, the group aims to build bridges
of respect and understanding through music. Kaufman
Center’s Merkin Concert Hall, 129 W. 67th St. Jun.
14, 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $30 at lavenderlight.com.

THEATER
The Etiquette of Death
Living in the East Village for the past 25 years,
Chris Tanner has been surrounded by death and
has become obsessed with how the dying and
those who love them behave in the face of it —
with reactions ranging from absurd to paradoxical,
wrenching, and even hilarious. Artists including
Penny Arcade, Lance Cruce, Jeremy Halpern, John
Jesurun, Taylor Mac, Stephen McCauley, Greta
Jane Pedersen, and Penny Rockwell, joined Tanner
her a
in putting together together
collage of scenes, songs, poetry,
lores
music and dance that explores
the “Etiquette of Death.” Everas
ett Quinton and Julie Atlas
Muz direct. La MaMa’s
Ellen Stewart Theatre,
66 E. Fourth St., btwn.
Second Ave. & the
Bowery. Jun. 14-Jul.1.
Thu.-Sat., 7:30 p.m.,
Sun., 5:30 p.m., except
for Jun. 24 at 2:30 p.m.
Tickets are $18; $13 for
students & seniors at lamama.org.

PERFORMANCE
It Gets Better: Healing
Through Improv
As part of a month of LGBT Pride Month events at
the New York Public Library system, the Jefferson
Market Library plays host to the National Comedy
Theatre, which presents an interactive program where
improvisational actors recreate scenes from the LGBT
experience based off of suggestions from those in the
audience. Bring your sense of humor as the troupe
works to inspire healing through comedic moments. 425
Sixth Ave. at 10th St. Jun. 14, 6:30 p.m.

䉴

14 DAYS , continued on p.38

38
䉴

June 6, 2012 | www.gaycitynews.com
p.m. The program will be reprised on Jun. 22, 5:30
p.m., at the Mid-Manhattan Library, 455 Fifth
Ave. at 40th St., east side of Fifth, with Lindsay
Weiner offering the style tips and Miles DeNiro taking Hedda Lettuce’s place.

14 DAYS, from p.37

FRI.JUN.15

FASHION
Emily Brontë/ Jacqueline
Susann Makeovers

AT THE BEACH
The Men of Fire Island
The Dworld Underwear Party presents the men
of DN’s Fire Island Calendar. DJ Chuck’s spinning is
followed by a late-night erotic cabaret, and a 2 a.m.
heated pool party. The Ice Palace, Cherry Grove.
Jun. 15, 11 p.m. Admission is $10.

SAT.JUN.16

ALEXANDER D’OR

FAITH
Taking a Chance on God

As part of a month of LGBT Pride Month events
at the New York Public Library system, the Jefferson Market Library hosts “Styled by Literature,”
in which Bevy Smith, a social media socialite, provides expert style tips in literary makeovers for drag
queens Hedda Lettuce, Paige Turner, and Yuhua
Hamasaki. 425 Sixth Ave. at 10th St. Jun. 15, 6:30

As part of the 40th anniversary celebration of
Dignity, the organization for LGBT Catholics, director
Brendan Fay and producer Ilene Culter present “Taking A Chance on God,” a portrait of 86-year-old John
McNeil, a pioneer gay Catholic priest, who was a
POW in Nazi German, a Vietnam peace activist, a gay
rights advocate and Dignity co-founder, and the loving
partner for 46 years of Charles Chiarelli. McNeill, Fay,
and Culter will take questions after the screening.
School of Visual Arts Beatrice Theatre, 23rd St.,
btwn. Eighth & Ninth Aves. Jun. 16, 7 p.m. Tickets
are $16.52 at brownpapertickets.com/event/246908.

CULTURE
Hip-Hop & Divas
As part of a month of LGBT Pride Month events
at the New York Public Library system, VIBE senior
editor Clover Hope, and Kathy Iandoli, music editor

Organizers call this event New York Fucking City’s
Sexiest Street Festival. Thousands of sexy kinksters turn
out on 28th St., btwn. 10th & 11th Aves. on Jun. 17,
2-7 p.m., for a summer afternoon to celebrate sexual
diversity and expression. Will Clark and Xavier Rice
emcee, with performances by the Glamazons, Dallas
DuBois, Heloise and the Savoir Faire, Brett Gleason,
Naked Highway, Kyle Edmond, Derek Bishop, and the
Imperial Court of NY. The event benefits the New York
City LGBT Community Center, the New York City AntiViolence Project, and the National Coalition for Sexual
Freedom. This year’s Sexual Freedom Award goes to
Diana Adams, an attorney, activist, and educator who
agitates for sexual civil rights and nontraditional families
in representing gay, lesbian, polyamorous, and single
clients. Admission is $10. More information on the
festival and other leather events during this weekend at
folsomstreeteast.org.

BENEFIT
The Happiest of Endings
In “Broadway Bares XXII: Happy Endings,” a fundraiser for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, more than
200 of New York's sexiest and most delectable dancers
travel to a land where rubbing a magic lamp reveals
more than just a genie. These storybook happy endings
would make seven dwarfs whistle before and after
they work. Roseland Ballroom, 239 West 52nd St.
Jun. 17, 9:30 p.m. & midnight. Tickets are $60-$750 at
broadwaycares.org.

SUN.JUN.17

PRIDE
Garden Party 29

The LGBT Community Center’s traditional kickoff to
Pride Week offers “A Taste of Pride,” with food offerings
from more than 30 Manhattan eateries and caterers.
This year, the party has been moved to Pier 46 at Christopher St. on the Hudson River. Jun. 18, 6 p.m. This
event supports the Center’s programming providing lifeaffirming and changing programs and services for New
York’s vast and diverse LGBT community. Tickets begin at
$85, which includes the open bar; $150 for a food tester
ticket, at gaycenter.org.

BENEFIT
Judy, Judy, Judy...
Justin Sayre hosts the second annual "Night of A

The Metropolitan Community Church of New York,
one of the oldest LGBT congregations in the nation,
hosts “Evening of Pride & Hope: 2012,” a fundraising
reception celebrating 40 years of serving the community.
XL Nightclub, 512 W. 42nd St. Jun. 19, 6-8 p.m.
Admission is $30 at tinyurl.com/7rkhosj. Benefactor
admission at $85 allows early entry at 5, with a swag
bag and keepsake included.

WED.JUN.20
BOOKS
Doonan & DeCaro
Frank DeCaro, an Sirius XM radio host and author
of “The Dead Celebrity Cookbook: A Resurrection
of Recipes from More Than 145 Stars of Stage and
Screen,” talks with Simon Doonan, the creative force
behind the infamous windows at Barney's and author
of “Gay Men Don’t Get Fat,” “Wacky Chicks” and
“Confessions of a Window Dresser.” Bryant Park
Reading Room, the 42nd Street side of the park
under the burgundy and white umbrellas. Jun.
20, 12:30-1.45 p.m. The rain venue is Library of the
General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen,
20 W. 44th St.

PRIDE
Geeks, Grooms & Comics
Geeks OUT (geeksout.org), New York City's largest group for queer geeks, hosts “Mighty Mutant
Marriage Extravaganza,” a Pride event celebrating
the one-year anniversary of marriage equality in New
York and Marvel Comic’s upcoming “Astonishing
X-Men #50, “which features the marriage of out characters Kyle and Northstar. Marriage Equality USA’s
executive director, Brian Silva, is the special guest.
Elmos, Marvel, and Midtown Comics, which is looking for gay and lesbian couples to marry in their store,
are providing prizes. Downstairs at Elmo Restaurant and Lounge, 156 Seventh Ave., btwn. 19th &
20th Sts. Jun. 20, 6-9 p.m. Admission is $5.

PERFORMANCE
The Iconic Barbra
As Brooklyn awaits the Barclays Center debut
performances of Barbra Streisand, Marc Courtade, an
adjunct professor in the arts management program at
Long Island University and the business manager of its
Tilles Center for the Performing Arts, discusses one of
the most critically and commercially successful women
in show business history. 92nd Street Y, Tribeca, 200
Hudson St., just below Canal St. Jun. 20, noon-1
p.m. Tickets are $18 at 92YTribeca.org.